First
by half-breedMiralian
Summary: It is a timeless cliché. "There is a first for everything." He hates it. However, it is undeniably true. And honestly, he has just woken up. There are more important things to focus on besides overused phrases. BlackFrost.
1. Awakening

When Pitch is pulled out of that dark place, he does not know how many years have passed. All he knows is that the hand which clasps him is white beneath the dirt it is covered in. As though that hand has been digging.

That is how Jack Frost becomes the first person to mentally and physically drag the Boogeyman out of his dark little hole, though Pitch does not think about this until a much later time.

"You're alright," Frost says beneath the glow of that blasted moon, brushing filth from the shade's shoulders as though he is a child. "You're alright."

Pitch merely gasps for air, waiting for the biting chill that comes with the winter spirit's presence to strike his lungs, but it never does. Instead, he feels the warmth of an early summer night grace his skin, and he suddenly realizes that he is _here_ and Frost is _here_ and, without a second thought, his hand shoots out to grip that pale, frozen neck.

Everything comes rushing back, though he has hardly forgotten. How could he? And this little brat was the cause of _everything_ that had gone wrong. So all of it, the hatred, the shame, the anger, it smacks Pitch upside the head in a wave. He has lost everything—his victory, his pride, his power, damn it, and his Nightmares, the turncoats, are long gone. No doubt Sanderson has already dragged them into his fold, infected them with his golden light.

Oh, yes. How could he ever forget all of that?

Ashen lips curl back from razor teeth, a sneer and a snarl all in one, and something akin to a livid scream is building in the back of his throat.

"_You_."

Pitch Black says it simply, but the promise of death does lurk behind the single word. There is so much more to say. That scream is building. And yet, the rest of him is losing its steam. He feels…quite different from before. Before his perfect plan went awry. His soul feels…lost.

With that realization, he loses his mind in a very quiet manner. A harsh exhale of breath turns into several more gasps, and he feels a hand stroking his back calmly, _patronizing_ him. He tries to muster up some bit of rage, he really does. However, the next words come out with weakened syllables, no punch to them whatsoever.

"What am I doing here?"

As soon as he hears himself say that, he feels as though he has asked a very foolish question. Blue eyes blink, and the pale mouth curves into an amused smile. Pitch stares at the expression, waiting for the pity to follow, but there is none. Though he supposes that is due to the fact that he is still trying to choke the brat.

"I think you _live_ here, buddy." The words are strained because of a lack of air, but Frost manages.

Pitch looks away. He stares at the cursed earth beneath his feet, earth which has long since lost its life when he decided to inhabit the caverns beneath it. It is warm, snow-free, meaning that winter has been over for quite some time. Perhaps. He feels the youthful sprit shift, and tightens his grip. "And _you?_"

"I'm bored," Frost says, managing to sound impressively smug for someone being choked. Pitch finally glances over and does not like what he sees in that gaze, because what he finds there makes him slowly let go of that thin neck and put a foot back in his hole.

There is no pity in those eyes, no, but there is…he is not sure. Perhaps that is why he wants to get away from it. He is usually so good at reading people. And he does not feel any fear radiating from the boy. Perhaps wariness, a bit of worry (and if that does not confuse him, he is not sure of what else will), but…he _does not know_.

"Find someone else to amuse you," he finally settles on grumbling, still fishing around in his black soul for the violence and malice he should be slinging at the winter spirit. But he _cannot find it_. Something is wrong. He…is still lost. Did they remove his power while he slept? They must have had plenty of time, seeing how it is now summer. The trees about the dead clearing are full of pine needles and large oak leaves, evidence of the swell of summer. There is a sweet undercurrent to the breeze sifting through his hair, drawing up images of wildflowers nearby. He supposes Bunnymund drew up the necessary magic circles to strip him of his darkness. The damn rodent and his alchemy.

Frost seems to start as Pitch sinks further into darkness. "Wait, Pitch, you don't—"

Pitch rounds on him, noticing how his own movements have lost their smoothness. He is awkward, unbalanced, jerky. Wonderful. "Isn't it a little unlike the Guardians to send someone to torment me? It has not even been two months, and you think my wounds have not yet closed? You wanted to be left alone, and now, so do I."

The hand which closes on his arm sends a chill up his spine, forces him to pause. Something curls in that empty spot where the power of the Nightmares used to be. It feels cold, but it also feels filling. That should not bother him. And it does not. But it certainly frightens him.

"Pitch…that wasn't a couple months ago."

The Nightmare King – can he even call himself a king, with his spectacular defeat? – raises his eye to the Man in the Moon uncertainly. "How long?" The question is not directed to the blasted fool in the sky; he does not want to speak to him. It must have been at least one, maybe two years then. Long enough for them to dig this hole into his very being. He had not realized how attached his powers had been to the Nightmares. Years of practicing, of turning those golden dreams into darkness, had bound them to him. How would he fill this void now?

In that silent question, he misses Frost's answer to the other. He glares sharply at the boy. "Repeat that."

Frost shrugs nonchalantly, unperturbed by his foul mood. "Almost…thirty years?"

Ah. Pitch shudders briefly. He has _never_ lay dormant for longer than a year or so after his losses. After that, he is usually up and about, scheming and planning his next attack. He may not attack for decades, or even centuries, and thirty years is nothing to spirits, but to sleep for so long? To lay _idle_ for so long…?

Pitch cannot hear what the youth is saying as he slips back down into his hole, into the welcoming darkness. He has no fear. What can he fear? His defeat? It has already passed. There is nothing left of him to beat down. Frost tries to reach in and pull him back up, but Pitch evades the pale fingers and wraps himself in a shadowy corner, not even bothering to move further into his lair. He will sleep a bit longer, perhaps a few more hours, and then he will…

He does not know what he will do. That is a first. This is his longest slumber yet. Another first. He supposes, as he hides his golden eyes from the shadowy world, that in terms of a final first, Jack Frost has become the first person to ever bother to wake him at all.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Not even gonna...nope. College blindsided me. Taking four English classes. Only reason I have managed to dig out time for this is because of something that is happening which will give me a smidgen of time. This is not even the ROTG fic I was hoping to write in between. What the what.

Bad news: I cannot get to the "Stir Thy Heart, Shadows" sequel until my winter break. Because, again. Four. English classes. Good news: I will be working on the sequel for all of winter break. Which is a whole month. So if you can settle for these unintended drabbles along the way...yeah. No publishing schedule. Won't be able to do the one-a-day thing, obviously. But I'm still here. I haven't forgotten about this. Skeletal outline for the sequel exists at least. Thank you for understanding. Happy hiatus!


	2. Visitor With a Smile

Pitch takes a long time to think about where he is and how he ended up here. He sits in the dark, takes walks about his lair, exploring his forgotten haunts. It feels as though he was just walking across this slanting bridge yesterday, yet it has been…thirty years. He tries not to think about that.

He does wander, and he does think, and he comes to the conclusion that he cannot do anything. He wants revenge—he lusts after it, undoubtedly. At least, he wants to. But for some reason, something does not allow him to push his brain to that limit. He cannot focus on it. The part of him that allowed him to scheme is gone.

Therefore, all he can do is pace. He does not know what else he can do. His soul, his _heart_ is empty. He wants to want revenge, but he cannot revenge. And along with that want to want, he wants something else. Or perhaps that something else is the real want. Either way, he does not know what he wants.

Coincidently, Frost visits every day, and that does not sit well with Pitch. For one, the brat invades his lair with an annoying "hey!" every morning. With him comes a burst of cold wind, followed by a small flurry of snow.

"Get out," Pitch grumbles every morning. And every morning, his demand is ignored.

"_You_ should get out, see the world," Frost says one day in early July, while his wind dips down from the entrance and playfully stirs Pitch's robes. The shade is less than amused, and he swipes half-heartedly at the other spirit when he wanders too close. "Hey, c'mon. Why are you so bitter?"

The look Pitch tries to give used to be able to nearly flay the flesh from the living. It used to be able to clench the hearts of children and squeeze all the fear from them until they were mere shells. It used to be able to do many things. Now, all it does is make the boy smile, something nearly unbearable, because he is always smiling when he visits.

"You did not just pose that question. To _me_."

"I guess I just did. Sorry." He does not look or sound sorry. "Alright. Then I'll have to bring the world to you. Hm. Okay."

"What?" Pitch turns, but the boy is already gone. He stands there for a minute, pondering Frost's last words, then promptly turns to hide in the shadows. He does not want to know what that nuisance intends to bring into his lair, nor does he want to deal with it when it arrives. Therefore, he _must_ hide.

A few hours later, Frost returns with something tucked in his arms. Pitch observes him from his dark corner and ignores the call to come out.

"Aw, c'mon! I had to look all over for this!" He raises whatever is in his arms, but the shade immediately looks away. He does not give a damn about whatever is there, and he does not want to see it. If it has nothing to do with this empty void in his soul, it is not worth his attention.

After a lengthy pause, Frost huffs and obscures the item from his view. "Okay, fine. I'll just set it down over here, okay?" He flies to a ledge jutting from a wall high in the air and places his token there. There is a clink of porcelain, and a bit of scraping as he adjusts its position. Pitch only looks at Frost's expression, which moves from mildly pleased to utter delight. "Oh! Hey, I'll be back!"

So Frost leaves again, and Pitch is left to slink through darkness. He does not look at whatever is on that ledge.

The winter spirit takes a little longer to return, but he is carrying a basket filled with something that Pitch – naturally – does not look at. Frost takes to placing more items on the ledge, and then rushes out without an announcement. He returns in thirty minutes with something else, then leaves. It becomes a very annoying habit, and presently Pitch retreats entirely from the main cavern into the tunnels which wind through the underground. He will leave the stupid boy to do as he pleases.

For two days, Pitch stays in the darkness. Then he sleeps.

He is not sure how long he sleeps, but he awakens to the frigid chill of pale hands at the sides of his neck. He gasps in the darkness, wondering if he has been lying in darkness for longer than he thought. Perhaps years have passed again, and it is his own fault this time.

However, his sharp eyes catch sight of that stupid basket at Frost's side, and he bats his hands away with a snarl. "Get out."

"But you have to come see this." Frost is smiling. "I brought you some of the world."

The hands return, insistent, and curl around thin, ashy wrists. Pitch is concerned when he feels that void in his heart waver ominously, because touch is something he has been deprived of. He was so used to being walked through for centuries, and then he managed to have a little relief during his reigns of terror, and even during the last scheme, he had his Nightmares whose flanks he brushed reassuringly, reminding himself that there was something with life that he could still touch.

Frost's touch draws him out unwillingly, and before he knows it, he is standing on that damn ledge. He jerks away with a sharp intake of breath, only looking at Frost. He does not like this. He should be spearing him with shadows. Does he even have shadows? He opens his spidery fingers and calls to them. With some relief, he sees darkness stir in his palm, and thinks to himself that he is quite lucky. Perhaps, with time, he might be able to drudge up something truly terrifying. If he could just find it within himself to call forth the Fearlings, the Nightmare Men, _anything_—

Frost has been talking without noticing that Pitch is entirely lost in his own mind, and that is why Pitch staggers under the weight of a Chinese Lucky Cat which is thrust into his arms. He stares at it for a second, with its painted eyes and bobbing hand, then glares at the ledge, finally.

It is covered with items from across the world. Matryoshka dolls from Russia, sports equipment from Canada, toy robots from Japan, a sewing kit from England, rag dolls from Africa. The only reason Pitch knows where these items came from is because they have little labels stickered to them, countries and cities scrawled in hasty handwriting. He looks at Frost, who is watching him proudly. "Well?"

In response, Pitch drops the Lucky Cat.

It shatters everywhere, forcing Frost to leap back to avoid the sharp fragments which skitter by his feet. Now it is Pitch's turn to watch his expression. Surprise, then hurt and sadness, and when blue eyes look at the unamused, thunderous face of the Nightmare King, fear curls up too.

There. That right there. Pitch tries not to breathe it in too quickly, but it is so _delicious_. For a minute, the void quakes violently within him, because _that_ is _what he wanted_.

But then Frost seems to quell everything, and settles on a smile. "I'll get you a new one."

Pitch snags his hoodie and draws him close. "What part of 'get out' do you not understand?" He is trying to evoke more fear, but Frost does not look like he'll be frightened again for a long while.

"Um, could you define that? Then give me its origins? Is that Latin-based?"

Pitch shoves him off the ledge. Frost easily catches himself and waves goodbye. "Well, I'll be back tomorrow, okay? Stay out of trouble until then. And play nice with Mr. Roboto while I'm gone!"

Pitch ignores his departure and looks upon the worldly items. He reaches for a teddy bear, ready to rip its stuffing out, when he notices the thing that all of these silly gifts have in common. They have all been used. They are worn out, tired things, things which have been loved and then slowly forgotten and put aside or thrown away. Things that still have a little more to give to whoever wants them. They want to be loved. They need it. It is obvious, with the emotional investments that still cling to them. Pitch can smell them.

He wonders if Frost was trying to send a subliminal message to him. Or if these items are supposed to be metaphors. Pitch feels a little bit of respect for the boy. Clever.

Therefore, with the _utmost_ respect, he proceeds to smash, tear, and burn every item on that ledge, wondering how long that smile on the boy's face will remain when he comes by tomorrow. That brings him to another realization.

Jack Frost is the first person to visit him every day with a smile on his face. (And the first person to give him "gifts", but that does not count because Pitch destroys those. Respectfully.)


	3. Person

The youth says, "I want to show you something."

It has been a week since the gifting. A week since Frost returned and saw all of his items reduced to bits and ashes. A week since Pitch had watched him stand rooted to the edge of that ledge with an impassive face, even though a wave of rage and sorrow moved through him. Pitch could sense those emotions, and did not understand what prompted them. They had only been toys. Stupid things the boy had collected from across the globe in the spur of the moment just to piss the shade off.

Yet Pitch had felt those emotions pierce his void as he watched Frost scrape up the ashes and stuff them into his pockets. The spirit had gathered as much of the remains as possible, even went so far as to dump them into his hood, and then just stood there when he could not hold anymore. His hands were stained with black, and his cheeks were too when he rubbed them unhappily. But then he had left without a word, and Pitch had watched him leave from his hiding place, wondering if it was the last he would see of him.

No. Of course not. The boy came back later that day, hoodie clean, hands scrubbed raw, pink fading from the rims of his eyes, face washed clean and bright—as though trying to hide evidence of ash and tears.

Pitch did not ask. Frost did not tell. He had merely greeted the tall spirit with a cheery "hey!" and sent forth from his mouth a useless stream of babble which Pitch had ignored. He did not feel remorse for what he had done. The items had been useless, an eyesore. Also, the void in his soul did not allow him to feel much.

But that is neither here nor there. This is now.

Frost says he has something to show, so Pitch has to come with him.

Pitch refuses (naturally) but Frost ignores that (unsurprisingly) and says that they are to meet in Shibuya in an hour. When the boy is gone, Pitch retreats to a broken throne of granite tucked away within the bowels of his lair and sits there. He does not move.

He does not know precisely how much time passes, but he knows it must be measured by a few days, for Frost does not return. Pitch's heart is empty. He does not feel loneliness. Still, after those few days, he grows curious as to what it was in Shibuya that the brat wanted him to see. Perhaps he was to receive more useless junk. Perhaps the Guardians had gathered there to teach him a lesson for destroying those items. Though that would be a paltry reason.

Pitch stands and tests his powers. The sand is all gone, but his shadow walking skills still remain. And he can see shadows swimming in his palm. No, he is not strong enough to take on the Guardians, but now he is rather curious to see what they might be up to. What _have_ those no-nonsense cretins been up to?

More's the question: do they know what _Frost_ has been up to? Have they told him to visit Pitch, or is he doing it of his own free will?

Now there's a question he would like to have answers to.

Shibuya, when he arrives, is filled with neon signs and bustling pedestrians and shiny cars. It looks the same as it always has, save for a few new buildings here or a new car model there. Nothing futuristic. Normal. So mankind has not obtained more than a few brain cells. That is perfectly fine. Pitch watches from the top of a building, and then sits down to stare at the nightlife. This is a rather busy place in the city, this giant crosswalk, and its movement makes the lights blur before his eyes.

After a few minutes, he spots a figure sitting on another building. Frost's bare feet are swinging over the ledge and his head is tilted with a passive look on his face. His staff lies next to him, and he drums his fingers over it once every ten seconds. Pitch counts those seconds, then steps through his shadows so that he winds up directly behind the boy's back. He observes the lonely blue figure. Aside from the swinging feet and the drumming fingers, Frost is motionless. A statue, almost. As though he has not moved from that spot for quite some time.

The Guardians are nowhere in sight. Pitch moves to Frost's side.

He jumps, of course. But instead of shouting or lashing out at his enemy (Pitch wonders about his status to the boy) who has left him to wait for several days, he smiles – _smiles_ – and stands. "C'mon," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets, staff tucked under one arm. He flies down to a less busy street connecting with one of the main roads, and Pitch arrives at his side again in darkness. Frost motions for him to wait here, and disappears inside the open backdoor of a shop.

Pitch is silent, because he has nothing to say. Nothing to do. He has nothing. Feels nothing.

Frost comes back out with a tray of two steaming bowls of soup. "Here you go. Best stuff on the block."

The Nightmare King looks at him and walks away.

Frost laughs brightly and follows. Pitch, when he gets out to one of the sidewalks, moves to a bench on the sidewalk. He sits. Frost sits. The tray is offered.

After a moment, Pitch says, "You brought me out here to eat?"

Frost gives him an insulted look. "These noodles are pretty damn good."

Pitch Black takes another moment of silence, in which he lets go of anything he has been holding onto, and then takes a bowl, void be damned. When their fingers brush, Pitch feels his nearly non-existent heart tremble. It seems to only do that when he gets a taste of the spirit's emotions (Frost is the only one he's tasted since his awakening), or when he touches him (again, the only contact in decades).

The heat feels good on his hands.

The heat of the soup, of course. Because Frost is cold, _like frost_, and he can't provide heat (yet Pitch feels like he is burning as he takes the bowl off the tray and his knuckles are removed from the contact). But…the soup. Right. It would be scorching, if he wasn't used to heat.

Beneath the stars, they eat in silence—mostly silence, as Jack Frost proves to be as immature as ever, slurping noisily. "I can't handle hot stuff too well," he says through a mouthful.

Pitch would not go so far to say that the moment is companionable, but it feels nice to have nothing in his brain. To not plot or think right now about revenge, just to sit and watch the clueless humans mill about. But with so many people walking by, it is difficult not to feel invisible. They are sitting right in the throng of them – this is the busiest crossing in Japan, he believes – yet no one sees them. It is lonely, even with his companion.

"Feel better?"

A sneer plasters itself to his face. "What do you think?"

Frost chuckles. "Well, you sound okay."

What annoys Pitch is the fact that he feels the faint urge to ask if _Frost_ is okay. After all, he had seemed rather distressed about the destruction of his little toys. Instead, he returns the bowl to him and stands, and then is shocked to hear several shrieks in the distance. His dark head whips around sharply, and he sees that several people are staring at something behind him. He looks back, wondering what could be occurring, but there is nothing there, and he realizes that they are staring at _him_.

His shock gets the better of him, and his shadows save him from standing there like an idiot – entirely unbefitting of a king. He opens his eyes in an alleyway branching off of a side street, breath coming in shallow gasps. He is visible to them. They were not children, but they were not adults either. And they had seen him.

Someone _sees him_.

"Yeah, see, that's what I actually wanted to show you," Frost says, floating down, balancing the tray on one hand. "We all worked really hard to make sure you didn't disappear. Like it or not, you need to be believed in."

"That is the stupidest reason I've ever heard," Pitch says faintly, leaning against the wall. They had _seen_ him.

"Not really. So can you not try to take over the world this time around? I'm not going to let you disappear. The world needs you." He reaches out and touches his arm, and it nearly _burns_. "Are you okay?"

Jack Frost is the first person to tell Pitch Black that he is needed.

Coincidentally, Pitch entirely forgets to ask about the Guardians, but that is because he runs away. Runs fast and far through shadows until he is on the other side of the world where the chill of winter skin cannot reach him and make him doubt his way of living.


	4. Introduction

Pitch stops telling Frost to leave every time he arrives for a visit. No, instead, he practically demands that he visit, though it is not really that. He makes it perfectly clear. He is no kinder to Frost than he was before. If anything, he is just slightly more vicious. When the boy tries to start a casual conversation, Pitch snaps something so cruel that the whitish mouth shuts with an audible _click_. When he tries to pester the shade with questions, he is promptly stolen away by shadows and deposited elsewhere in the lair, or sometimes on another continent.

Frost never brings up why Pitch ran away that night, and that is the only thing he is grateful for. After getting a hold of himself, he had returned to his lair and sat there until the other came by with an apologetic smile and some handheld game system as an apology. The toy was in the same state as the others had been: worn, used, and well-loved, with just a little more life left in it. He had presented it to Pitch, who had looked it over, deaf to the explanation tumbling from pale lips, and then had snapped it in half without a second thought.

He was quite sure he had broken Frost's spirit as he had gathered up the pieces and disappeared, but no. He returned later, face suspiciously shiny, well-cleaned, and had started up his useless babble.

Pitch does not know why the brat insists with those stupid items if he knows they'll just be destroyed. In any case, the real reason he keeps Frost around (read: does not try to chase him out as often) is because he wants to be shown where his believers are.

He roams about at night with Frost because Pitch's head feels empty without his tastes of fear. Usually, he would be jumping at the chance to somehow use the winter spirit against the Guardians, but when he flies through the air with the boy at his side, he feels calm because the pressures of his own habits are not knocking about in his skull. He focuses on those who can see him instead, because they are his priority now. Fear takes precedent over revenge, because fear is something he can definitely have.

But sometimes Frost can be distracting without meaning to be (Pitch thinks).

There are moments when they stand on a sidewalk together, watching the crowds rush by, that their arms will brush and Pitch feels something curl in his chest. This fear he has been sipping from his few believers is usually the only thing which moves him, but this does to, and he does not like that. He is quite sure he does not like that. He shifts away when something like this happens, and if Frost notices, he does not comment or try to resume contact. Honestly, it is probably just an accident.

He focuses on the humans.

One day, at the end of August, Frost says he has somewhere to be. He has come for a quick visit in the early morning, but he cannot stay long.

Pitch does not ask why. He does not care. But Frost asks if he wants to come along, and he replies, "I don't exactly have anything better to do, do I?"

So he finds himself on the doorstep of a pretty little house in Burgess. Jack pinches his sleeve and drags him through the wall, calling, "Jamie!"

There is an excited set of squeals, and Pitch dully recalls the name – a young boy, decades ago, the last light on the globe, staring with terror-filled eyes, then later walking right through him – as two young children come dashing down the stairs.

Neither of them are this "Jamie" person, but they see Frost and immediately dash in for a hug. He ruffles their heads warmly and calls for his friend again.

"Hold your horses, I'm coming!" a voice replies from upstairs, while the children stare long and hard at Pitch.

"Is that him?" the little boy asks softly, a slight lisp marring his speech.

"Yup," Frost says proudly. "Pretty cool, yeah?"

The little girl asks, "Are you really going to come to our Halloween party?"

"You bet he is," Frost answers for him, just as Jamie Bennett comes downstairs. No longer a boy, he glances at the two spirits with more warmth than Pitch thinks he wants to see, and presses quick kisses to his children's foreheads.

"Go on, now, and make sure you wash your hands before you eat lunch!" He shoos them to the door, and Pitch sees a bright yellow bus coming up the road. Bennett remains at the door to wave for a few more seconds, seeing his children safely on the bus, then turns to greet his guests. "Jack. Honestly, Pippa said she found snowballs in the freezer again. It's summer. Don't you know when to take a vacation?"

"I have been!" Frost says, following him into the living room and dropping himself onto the couch like he lives there. Pitch remains where he is by the door. "But you can't expect me to just go into hibernation like a bear. I can't exactly sleep through summer. It's boring!"

"Yeah, I can't see that happening," Bennett agrees, settling into an armchair that he looks like he belongs in. His face is weathered and the age lines are visible. He has grey hairs, but not as many as Pitch thought he might have. His eyes are still as bright as they were in his youth, and they sparkle with childlike energy as he dives into a conversation with the spirit.

Pitch takes a moment to observe where he is. A fairly nice home, nothing too showy, so a reasonable salary. Pictures lining some bookshelves and the top of the piano pushed by a window in the living room. The pictures are of Bennett, his wife, his children, and sometimes Jack. Pitch wonders what visitors see in the photos with Jack. Does the camera actually capture a spirit's image, or does it capture an essence that is only visible to believers?

The bookshelves are filled with reading material, but Pitch notices that the top shelf is lined with books stamped with Bennett's name. An author, then. A writer. He wonders why he is not surprised, and chalks it up to the fact that he does not feel much these days, and therefore cannot bring himself to care. Not that he would want to. But the man must have travelled the world, because he can see foreign translations of some of the books too. So. He's done well.

Pitch wonders if Bennett has kept in touch with all of the Guardians, and this thought leads him down the path he had originally forgotten: the _Guardians_. Where were they? He had not heard or seen an inkling of them since his awakening. They were certainly still around and going strong, because that globe he had set up still gleamed with their holier-than-thou light. But Frost was here. And they were…where?

Did they know that he still had followers? Ah, but that led to another thought path: how had he gotten followers? They would never willingly try to keep fear alive in the world, other than what was necessary to keep children from waltzing into the middle of the highway. Frost, it seemed, had had some part in it, and he had said "we". So did the Guardians aid him?

"Have a seat."

Pitch starts. The other two are looking at him from the living room. Bennett's bright eyes are warm and welcoming, and that just does not sit right him. He puts a hand on the doorknob, but Frost frowns. "C'mon, Pitch. You know you have nothing better to do."

A snarl bubbles in the back of the shade's throat. "I have no time for domesticity." He glances at the human. "And I find it unnerving that _you_ should greet me as an old friend."

Bennett shrugs. "So you dished out a few nightmares some years ago. To be honest, my kids could use a couple now. They're having trouble understanding the concept of actually cleaning their rooms instead of shoving everything under the bed. Maybe you could—"

"No."

Frost is by his side in a flash, gripping his arm faster than he can open the door. "Please?" he says in a low voice. "Why not stay a bit?"

And that hand drifts down to touch his fingers, to hook their index fingers around each other. The other touches might have been an accident, but this is certainly not one. It is hidden from the human's sight, but the finger becomes several, then a whole hand. Pitch is too surprised to protest, because there is a warm chill, if such a thing can exist, which spreads through his skin, and it _feels good_.

Pitch lets go.

Frost stares.

Pitch looks down at him and feels nothing (he has to tell himself this now), but allows himself to be drawn into the living room by a gentle hand on the corner of his elbow. He sits on the edge of the couch, leaving a good foot of space between himself and the frost spirit. Jamie Bennett leans back comfortably and asks, "So, what have you been up to?"

Jack Frost is the first person to introduce Pitch to a human who accepts him for who and what he is.

And once again, Pitch forgets to ask the questions that need asking.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Haha, it's already 1 in the morning, so it's over, but Happy Halloween! Have a sketch:

tobiasbotte. tumblr image/65670485972

You know the drill. Remove the spaces. Thank you, and good night!


	5. Concrete Answer

September comes and continues, and Pitch becomes a frequent guest amongst the Bennetts. He and Frost are dinner guests every Friday, and little Molly and Joey – the brats, as Pitch deems them – usually beg him for a show of shadow puppets after dessert. At Frost's coaxing, he usually complies, but his heart is empty, even as the children's giggles drift into his ears as he makes a horse (he just can't let go, not yet) chase wildly after its herd.

He does not feel weak, because people can see him, and they fear him. He does not know where they are, but he knows that they exist. Jack eventually tweaks his globe so that the lights which shine across it represent believers of the Nightmare King. Pitch is more than surprised, and rather pleased, to see that the numbers rival nearly half of the Guardians' believers combined. It is a shock, in fact, for he had not done anything to earn them.

However, he feels that he is missing something important, and it is only during one warm day near the end of the month that he realizes it when he is given a breather from the winter spirit. That is when it hits him: he is supposed to be asking questions.

Funny, how that has slipped his mind constantly. He usually forgets his agenda when the Guardian of Fun is tugging gently at his hand, trying to convince him to take a trip to some place halfway around the world. Another funny thing, Frost's fixation with his hands. His own pale fingers always migrate to Pitch's, and although it has only been to get his attention, Pitch feels that it is not unconscious. No, that brat knows exactly what he's doing.

The question (yet _another_ question, of _course_) is what is motivating those casual touches. Those touches which make the void in Pitch's soul seem not so empty.

Well. In any case.

It is rather odd that Frost has not shown up yet, so Pitch takes a walk around the world, so to speak. He jumps to Aruba, strolls about Amsterdam, slinks into Australia, then creeps through Antarctica—just because he is in a mood to visit places that begin with the letter "A". And also to see if Frost is there.

It isn't as though he is _really_ looking for him for the company. It's just that he would like to have some answers as to why _any_ of his life is occurring right now as it is. Because it shouldn't be. Pitch knows that under other circumstances, the Guardians would be biting at his heels, Jack right alongside them. However, these are not other circumstances. These are _these_ circumstances, of which he knows nothing about still.

Before heading home, he stops in Shibuya at that stupid noodle joint the young man likes to visit. Frost is not there, but he _is_ waiting for Pitch when he returns. He has some new activity planned for them today, but Pitch refuses to be distracted. To ensure this, he snags that blue collar and tugs, lifting him high in the air with a determined snarl.

"What are you playing at?"

Frost looks surprised at first, but realization kicks the look out of the way in a heartbeat. Then sheepishness sets in, and he seems to shrink into himself. "I don't know what you mean."

Pitch decides not to mock the pathetic attempt at a lie. "Where are the Guardians? They are still around, seeing how the children of the world have not fallen into a state of ruin. So tell me. Did they send you to wake me up?"

Frost plucks childishly at the grey fingers which refuse to relinquish their hold. With a huffy sigh, he answers, "No, but I'd really be more comfortable talking about this if I were standing on my own two feet." The Nightmare King scrutinizes his prey, then releases him, but he merely floats away in the air with no intention of touching the ground. "Thanks. Okay. No, no, they did not send me to wake you up. I did that on my own."

"And this…belief in me which has spread? Who is responsible for that?"

"Well, that was them, sort of. They needed _some_ sort of fear to stick around. Sandy did most of the grunt work at night, just shifted the dreams he was giving. Bunny freaked people out a couple times by just lurking in the shadows. He's got a way with popping up in random places, you know? But no one ever knew it was him. And I think that's about it."

"_Why?_"

"Why is that it? Or why did they do that?" A golden glare makes him laugh. "Okay. Um…wait, I already told you. The world needs fear. Yeah. And they weren't just going to let you die. Sandy said something along the lines of…you weren't going to be able to recover from this thing. From having the Nightmares stripped from you. Look, they're not stupid. They understand that there has to be balance in the world. You tipped it when you threw your 'it's my turn' tantrum! We put it back, and then made sure it stayed that way."

"So you did not need me to be present for any of it," Pitch says dully, thinking about when the boy had said he was needed. That certainly does not sound right anymore. Apparently Pitch is not necessary. Why would he be when the Guardians can apparently find it in themselves to spread fear to keep children in line?

"Well, we're just imitations. Gotta admit, you do a great job," Frost chirps cheerily, not noticing the shift in Pitch's posture until a second later. "Oh. Crap. No, Pitch, really, we do need you. We just…needed some time to recover too, I guess?"

Pitch steps away from him, making for the shadows, but Frost seizes his arm, and that curling feeling of fullness twists its way into his chest as it had before. This is getting ridiculous. He is usually rather good at ignoring it, or he has been trying through the month, but right now it is strong, and it is just the two of them and their breathing bearing down on them in the silence, and that white hand is now sliding down to meet his.

It would be perfectly understandable if he pulled away. Logical, even.

However, Pitch has not felt like himself lately, so he allows it.

"Why…" he says after a lengthy pause of just _feeling_. "Why did you wake me, Frost?"

The Guardian says nothing, but his grip tightens and his face reddens ever so slightly. "Does it matter?"

"They did not tell you to. So what were your motives?"

Pitch tracks every expression the other makes, even the darting of blue eyes down to their joined hands. "I, uh…was bored. Like, dying from it. Seriously."

"Hm. And do they know I am awake?"

Frost snorts, and Pitch picks up many emotions radiating from him suddenly. Haughtiness, annoyance, regret, pride, defensiveness…though he cannot decipher who the latter emotion is meant for. He gives the youth a second, then squeezes back to pull him out of the trance he seems to be falling in. He's doing himself no favors, sending lovely spirals of _something_ through his chest, but he needs answers, and it isn't like he's losing anything.

"Oh," the pale spirit says softly, softer than ever. "They know."

"You made sure of that," Pitch says just as soft, trying to get more from him by matching his tone.

"Damn straight I did," comes the growl. But the confession causes him to jerk away from Pitch with wide eyes, as though he has just realized what he has said. The nice feeling disappears. "Um. They know. That's all you need to know."

"What I need to know is why you woke me up."

"I was bored, okay?" The defensiveness is now turned against Pitch, that much is for certain. "Maybe I was just really bored, because it was the start of the summer and there was no need for me for another three months. I mean, I go through that year after year, but maybe this year was different! Maybe I wanted something to do! Maybe I was lonely!"

Pearly whites come together with an audible _click_. Wind-blown hair gets tousled as Frost shakes his head. "You know what? Sorry. Forget I said anything."

It's too late, of course. Loneliness? That's something he can work with, something he can decipher. Pitch tries to deduce him. It can't be because of a lack of followers. And he still has Bennett, whose belief is as strong as ever, even for an adult. He cannot possibly lack friends. There are plenty of children. What about the Guardians, though? Shouldn't they be…?

He recalls that Frost has spent a great deal of time with him, and not a word about the childhood protectors has been spoken. Not in great detail at least. Why has he not mentioned them? Has he even gone to see them since Pitch has awakened?

No…Pitch Black is quite certain that he has not.

"Ah." He says it quietly. Of course the root of this problem lies with those nuisances. Of course. But before he can inquire after the topic, Frost darts away, staff clenched tightly in too-white knuckles.

That's okay, Pitch thinks. It's the first time since he's woken up that he's gotten some concrete answers.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I just can't seem to keep away from their hands. If you're one of the people who read my STHS fic, you get it. You totally get it (even though there is no connection between these two stories).


	6. Invite

"I don't know what you mean," Jamie Bennett blatantly lies.

It is a cool afternoon in October. He's raking leaves in his front yard, Pippa is off at work – she plans weddings, and her career has been successful so far – and the children are at school. God knows what Frost is up to. He still comes around to the lair after that incident, but the activities he tries to drag Pitch into are highly distracting. Chances to visit some of his strongest believers and whatnot.

But in any case. Bennett is lying. Pitch knows he is lying because of the slight twitch of his fingers and the way he focuses on his work. He leans on the front porch railing with a sneer. "You can't hide a thing from me. I need answers. Now."

"Well, find someone else to talk to, because I don't know anything."

"I may be a shell of my former self, but I still retain enough power to put you through some gut-wrenching nights," the Boogeyman threatens lightly. "Or perhaps your dear wife. Or your children."

Bennett levels him with a surprisingly venomous look. "_Pitch_."

"No," he snaps back, straightening. "None of you have a right to keep this from me. _He_ won't say a word. Why am I here? Why did he awaken me? Why are the Guardians allowing me to roam?"

The man seems to deflate a little. "What does it matter? You're out, and you've got believers. Whatever happened before that…no, it's got nothing to do with you."

Pitch analyzes that sentence immediately. The "it" must be referring to some incident. His awakening was the result of something regarding the Guardians, obviously. But he feels like he already knew this, so he tries to push a little further. "Come to think of it, I don't believe I have seen any of them. North and Bunnymund's absence is understandable, but Toothiana and Sanderson? They are night fairies. Frost is only leading me to places of the night zone which are free of them."

"Don't you go wandering on your own when he's not around anyway? I'm sure you see them," Bennett grumbles, scraping viciously at a small clump of vibrant red leaves.

Pitch sniffs. "True. Though I do not interfere." He grins slowly. "There was a spat, wasn't there? That must be it. Frost is avoiding them. Oh, _wonderful_. But, Bennett, you are quite wrong. This _is_ my business. I am here because of the fight, then. So do tell. Now."

The other throws down his rake in agitation, then suddenly looks extremely docile and picks it up meekly, brushing it off like it is an old friend. "Huh. It's not like it's a secret or anything." At the shade's eager look, he sighs and takes a seat on the porch steps. "Okay. I guess…I don't know all the details…"

"Lies."

"Can you stop doing that?"

"No."

Bennett runs his hands through his hair a few times, then shrugs. "Yeah, okay, I know exactly what happened. I guess I'll tell you, or else…well, I don't know what will happen, but you and Jack will probably end up fighting if this doesn't get out in the open soon, and you two seem to get along really well." He ignores the indignant snort. "Yes, there was a fight, but it wasn't Jack's fault. In some ways, it wasn't their fault either. No guilty party."

Pitch disagrees with this silently and wonders what they could have argued about. Most likely it was Bunnymund's folly. He is the most abrasive of their little club.

"You remember the memory boxes, right? The ones you stole from Tooth?"

"Borrowed."

"Stole. You gave Jack his, and he told us about how he managed to get out and help us after you left him in that crevice—you were a real dick, by the way."

"You kiss your wife and children with that mouth?"

"Shut up. He told us how he got out. And then, after that, I guess when he was helping transport the teeth back to the Tooth Palace, he sort of forgot about his box." Bennett pauses, thinking hard. Pitch can practically see the cogs of his mind grinding out a different way to word the incident, whatever it was. "He was preoccupied."

Understandable. Of course the youngest Guardian would be thrilled by the prospect of believers. Discovering more would keep him distracted for years on end. Pitch suddenly realizes why his thoughts were so easily derailed by Frost. That little brat knew _exactly_ what he was doing when he whisked him away to Copenhagen or Warsaw or Tokyo to see new believers. He knew what power it would have over the shade's fear-depraved soul. (Though, Pitch suspects, he did not know what his touch did to him, and perhaps it was best to stay that way.)

"What happened when the novelty wore off?" Pitch inquires as politely as possible, because he really does want to hear the end of this.

"Oh, it hasn't," Bennett assures him. "He loves it like crazy. But then he saw a girl in the next town over who apparently looked like his sister or something, and he wanted to look through his memories again. That was, what, five, six years ago, I think?"

Pitch wishes he would stop pausing, because he wants to know the rest _now_ before Frost shows up. He has that nasty habit of appearing at inopportune moments.

"After he saw that girl, he went to Tooth and asked for his memory box, which she gave to him, of course. He spent a few days sifting through his memories of who he was before he became who he is now. Only…well, I'm not lying when I say that I'm not really sure what he saw that made him change, but he got all mopey. I think it was because he missed the life he had before, having a family. A real one. Because of that, the past five winters were really brutal ones. Cold, biting, long. He took his angst out on the rest of the world."

The shade can almost see the pale spirit screaming at the clouds while raging winds whipped about him in a frenzy, blasting the city below with a fierce, unrelenting blizzard. The mental image is rather beautiful, and he has to close his eyes to banish it. "The Guardians were not happy about this, I take it?"

Bennett laughs. "They let him have the first two years alone. They understood. They had gone through that phase once. However, you have to keep in mind that Jack's power is elemental. The others don't do damage. But Jack? Shit. I know that people die because of winter, but that's usually when he's not around. He just influences fun parts of the weather. He doesn't change it to really hurt people, and yet—"

"And yet he did this time," Pitch says softly, slowly comprehending the situation. "Did people die on his watch?"

Bennett stands and stretches, ready to get back to work. "He didn't know they were there. Honest. And the Guardians know it was an accident. But it's happened multiple times while he's been around. So yes, they weren't happy with him."

That is not fair, Pitch thinks begrudgingly. The elements are natural killers, with or without their spirit or fairy counterparts. It is the harsh truth. Just because Frost happens to be present for the deaths, or goes a little overboard with a storm, does not make him to blame. He is a Guardian of the essence of Fun in children, not of the physical Life. "How did their argument go?"

The rake resumes its combing of the grass. "They confronted him a couple times. He apologized, but brushed their concerns off for the most part. The last argument was a really big one." He pauses and looks Pitch right in the eye. "A week before he pulled you out."

Pitch can taste it. He tastes the omission. There is something that Bennett is not telling him, but he can't put his finger on it. It's something crucial, a flashpoint event, something that pushed Jack Frost over the edge. He opens his mouth to inquire after it, but then he notices the look Bennett is giving him. It is pained and pleading, begging for silence. Clearly there is a part of the story that is not his to tell.

Let it never be said that Pitch Black, Nightmare King, cannot be generous. He bows his head and gestures lazily. "I shall find out more later, then. You have my thanks." He is offended by the surprised stare he receives. He might be cruel and conniving, but he has manners.

Either way, Bennett resumes raking with a relieved nod. "Okay. Changing topics, though. You're helping out with the party, right?"

Pitch's scowl is as cool as the wind. "You seem to be suffering from a delusion. I suggest you seek help immediately."

He laughs at the insult. "Anyone ever tell you have funny you are?" He charges right along before Pitch's outrage can be expressed with words in addition to the wide-eyed look on his face. "The kids would really appreciate it."

"I owe your spawn nothing."

"Spawn? Really? Plus, my oldest is coming home that weekend—"

"Am I supposed to find that fact important?" Pitch cuts in. He has not met the Bennetts' oldest child, James (apparently he refused to go by the same nickname as his father), nor does he want to.

"You'll get the chance to scare people," Bennett says just as a nippy gust announces Frost's arrival. Impeccable timing. "Jack, tell 'im!"

"Tell him what?"

"That he ought to be at the party."

A grin splits Frost's face. "Oh, yeah! Jamie's working with the neighbors to put together this big Halloween block party. C'mon, Pitch, it'll be a blast. You'll get to sneak up on people and maybe you could even teleport a few of them into the haunted house they'll be setting up next door—"

"Surely you realize how futile it is to ask this of me." Pitch levels each of them with a steady gaze before turning his eyes down to the bushes lining the porch. He hears Frost and Bennett murmuring together. Then the human finishes up and goes inside, and Frost comes to the edge of the bushes and reaches out to touch Pitch's grey hands.

"I swear, you'll enjoy yourself. All I'm asking you to do is what you do best: scare people. Not so they wet themselves...well, maybe. But that's it. Please?"

Pitch isn't certain of what makes him agree. Most likely it is the feeling of that skin on his. This is becoming extremely annoying. He does not say yes immediately, nor does he actually _say_ "yes". But he looks at those blue eyes and hears the logic in the voice: he has nothing better to do on that day, and Halloween is a day for fear, and he does like fear, so why not? Plus, if he plays nice now, maybe he'll find more answers.

"If I do not enjoy myself?" he inquires softly.

"Then let me take you to dinner."

"How does that benefit _me_ if I don't want dinner?"

"Well, then, you can pick whatever you like. What if you _do_ have fun?"

"Then you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I did."

"That's…not very fair."

"So you finally understand the meaning of life."

Jamie Bennett excluded, Jack Frost is the first person to invite the Shadow King to a party.


	7. Date

Music is blaring, decorations are waving in the wind, the scent of chocolate is drifting up from somewhere, or everywhere, and there are so many people. So many. Pitch, from his safety zone on the porch, glares sourly at anyone who can see him. It's been an hour since the festivities started, and it's not even eight yet, meaning the night is still young, and he still has to be here.

"Uncle Black!" a pair of youthful voices squeal.

Pitch gives a long-suffering sigh as hands tug at his robe. "Now what, you brats?"

"Do we look okay?"

He raises an eyebrow at the horrendously mismatched princess dress Molly is sporting and the droopy pirate costume Joey has donned. Without thinking, he moves his fingers and the children are smothered in shadows. When the darkness lifts, Molly looks like an eerie witch child Pitch once had the pleasure of seeing dance in a Salem forest glade, and Joey's improved pirate costume reminds him of…something which he does not wish to think about. Something from long ago with shadows who used to follow his command and plunder all hope and light with him.

"There," he says in a bored voice, silencing the memories. "Now run along and don't bother me."

"You gonna thtart thcaring people now?" Joey says as Molly does as she is told.

"I'll start with you," Pitch threatens harmlessly, looming over the child. Joey seems to shrink in his boots, and he scampers. The look on his face lingers in Pitch's mind for a while, and he clings to that look with a surprisingly giddy feeling as the void quivers in his chest. When was the last time he had had a direct hand in frightening a child?

All this time, as Frost dragged him about the world to see his believers, he only stood at a distance in the shadows and watched the humans. He never actively interfered. From those distances, he felt the sweet tastes of fear when they spot him, but it had never been as full as it when he had administered shadows to their dreamless nights or figments in the alleyways as they walked home in the dark. Then he had been able to taste. To gorge himself.

Ah, sweet nostalgia.

He sees Frost in the distance mingling. He's not sure how, but for some reason, it is as though this entire block can see them. He believes it has something to do with the fact that the head families of this block are the children he faced a long time ago, the children who had bravely made a stand against him. Undoubtedly, they had given birth to a new generation, and had spread tales of the unseen to their neighbors. It is impressive. These humans even see him, but they are not so frightened at the moment, most likely because it is Halloween night.

There is a change in the air and the ring of sleigh bells in the distance. He groans. Of course _they_ would be invited. He makes to slip off, but suddenly recalls that the Guardians' presence might be a problem. In the distance, he sees the portal close and hears the cheers of the people on the block, adult and child alike, who spot the Guardians, greeting them like they are old friends. As the sleigh picks a yard to land in out of the way of the epicenter of the block party, Pitch spies Frost. He is eyeing his colleagues with blue eyes blown wider than ever. They swim with apprehension and longing and fright.

Pitch moves towards him, but Frost suddenly turns and catches his eye, giving him such a warning look that Pitch is compelled to snarl angrily and sit in one of the porch chairs. What did he do to deserve such a scowl in the first place?

Better yet, why the hell is he sitting? What kind of impulse was that? He sees Frost's attention shift back to them, and he knows by the intermittent shudders shaking that lithe body that he will break if he stands there in the midst of these people. So he rescues him.

Frost yelps as he is suddenly seized by strong arms and dragged through darkness. Pitch supposes he remembers the sensation from their unpleasant encounters all those years ago. When they pop out behind the Bennett residence in the quiet confinement of the backyard, they stand together, wrapped about one another, because somewhere along the way Frost has embraced Pitch back.

_Oh_, it feels wonderful. Right here, holding him, Pitch feels complete, and it feels so good, but he _loathes_ it. _This_ feeling from _this_ spirit is not supposed to be able to replace fear. No, not now, not ever. But Frost is trembling and pressing a chilly nose to the center slit of Pitch's robe, striking his hot skin. Pitch cards through the white shock of hair with a calming hand. "What is wrong?

"Jamie told you."

He laughs at the accusation. "He kept a good deal to himself. I'll only know what happened when you decide to tell me." He feels Frost shiver with relief. "Will you be alright to go out there?"

"Hn, yeah. I'll be good. Thanks." A choked laugh. "Wow. This is seriously weird. Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"This. Niceness. Whatever. It's weird."

Pitch's hand hesitates at the base of the spirit's head, then resumes its small kindness of bringing comfort. He is quite sure he could not stop if he wanted to. He's not sure if he even wants that. But he knows he should stop. This is a problem Frost needs to face on his own. The shade is beginning to accept that he really does have nothing to do with whatever is going on between the Guardians. Therefore, he will step back and let them sort it out, or at least wait until Frost is willing to talk to him about it.

He teleports them to the front porch, but when he lets go, Frost grips him a little tighter. "Not yet," he whispers pleadingly, so Pitch frowns and sits in a chair, making sure that the shadows are just a little longer in their corner so they don't draw much attention. Frost lays his staff down and curls up in his lap, a weight that makes the Nightmare King feel whole. The Guardians arrive in the throng of the crowd, and Pitch supposes that another reason people see any of them is because tonight is Halloween, the night when you can be whatever you want. They are not out of place. Although perhaps the first theory is better.

They are coming closer to the house, and Frost at last sighs and pulls away without a word, not even lingering.

The void rips through Pitch, forcing him to double over breathlessly. Ah. Not fun. Never fun. It feels so empty. He clamps his teeth down over the broken sound trying to punch its way out of his chest as Frost picks up his fallen staff, hops over the railing, and disappears into the crowd.

Pitch takes several deep breaths then goes to the edge and leans on a support beam to watch his enemies.

He is not sure what to feel when they see him. They do not seem surprised in the least. Tooth gives a small wave, North smiles gently, Sandy flashes pictures of greetings above his head, and Bunny tips an ear in acknowledgment. He is not sure what happened during those years he was asleep, but he is sure that he wants to know more than ever. All of this kindness is unnerving, and the reason behind will continue to elude him until he can get a word out of—

Frost appears at his side with some punch, the cup garnished with a paper umbrella sporting skulls and eyeballs. "Well?" His mood seems to have improved.

Pitch does not take the offered cup. "What?"

"You gonna do something? Or is it too early?"

"It's never too early for fear," Pitch snorts, but makes no move to do anything.

Frost stares at him for a long while, and then a slow smile inches onto his face. "Ah. Getting old, are we? Lost your touch?"

Later, Pitch supposes he will have to laugh at the fact that the comment is enough to trigger his anger. But in the moment, he seizes the spirit's collar, causing the punch to slosh a bit, and hisses, "Fear is timeless."

He wants to say more, but there's an urge burning in his chest, and he disappears into his shadows to start what he came here to do.

Bennett is the first to scream.

People look to him in a panic, but after a few seconds of clutching his chest, he waves them off, pale-faced. Marvelous. The human does not tell anyone about what he sees lurking in the bushes by the fence, but when he understands that Pitch is behind the shadowy creature, he laughs it off and commends him.

"Oh my _God_. If that was your warm-up, I pity everyone else tonight."

Pitch almost doesn't hear him. He is too busy drinking up the last vestiges of fear radiating from the man's body. It is as though he has been wandering in a vast desert for a long time, and all of a sudden, he has come upon an oasis, a place for a cool drink he did not know he needed.

And unlike what Frost's touch does to him (here one moment, gone the next, leaving emptiness), this feeling _stays_.

Eyes brighter than gold fix upon the human's face. "I'm just getting started." And Pitch Black means it.

The rest of the night is accompanied by consistent shrieks from all ages, followed by the nightmarish laughter of the guilty party. Even the Guardians are caught unaware. Bunnymund suffers thrice and is stamping his foot in nervous anger for a good hour afterwards. North's laugh booms out over the others. Tooth tries to land a half-hearted punch, but the shade slips away. Sandy actually almost does manage to hit him (he counts that as a bonus because he really has scared the little man).

Pitch doesn't care. He's having fun. He does not make people see their greatest fears out of the corner of their eye. That would be a little bit too much for tonight, and he is feeling generous because he is giddy off of the taste of _everything_. Instead, he only takes their lesser fears, things which would make their hearts jump and race away from their bodies before slowing to a walk after realizing that it was just a little spooky fun.

Pitch Black returns to life that Halloween night. All he has been missing was some fresh fear, fear which he actively instigated. When he takes a break around ten-thirty (not that he needs one), he is feeling whole and complete and like he could take on the world. Or the Guardians. Ideas fester and roil in the clever cesspool of his ancient mind, and he almost seriously considers vengeance. But then he locks onto Frost's figure down the street, and he forgets about revenge, instead remembering his own curiosity.

The block party really _does_ encompass the whole block, and Pitch has never felt further away from the spirit than in this moment. Frost is usually a constant at his side nowadays. Coming out of his fear-filled escapade, he realizes that despite the multi-course meal he has just enjoyed, he feels…bare.

The thought makes him light-headed. The fear he has harvested has completely filled the void. That is its rightful place. However, it now feels _pointless_. He thinks he knows why, and he thinks that he should hate it, or not hate it, and he is being too indecisive right now and everything needs to _stop_ for just a minute.

He watches Frost for a moment more, then dives back into the shadows. Not yet, he thinks. He will not stop just yet. He will not say anything yet. He will not…do anything. Yet.

He continues his fright-a-thon, as Jamie puts it after he jumps out of his shoes a second time. Pitch does not stop to wonder when he has started thinking of the human as "Jamie", but he supposes he can let it slide for tonight. In fact, why doesn't he just let it slide for a little longer than tonight? He doesn't mind it. After all, he does share dinner with the man and his family once a week. "Jamie" it is.

All the way until eleven-fifty, Pitch is relentless, dragging responses and laughter from the masses, even if they don't know it's him who is doing all of this. He wonders if the only ones who recognize his mischief are the Guardians and the original children from the battle of old, but by the end, he is pretty sure that almost everyone on the block knows he is behind this.

Regardless, at eleven-fifty, he stops. He stops because he sees Jack Frost again, sitting on the Bennetts' roof, overseeing the party which has _not_ stopped, even though all the children have gone to bed.

"Enjoying yourself?" the winter spirit asks, rolling an empty punch cup in his hands while the shade sits beside him.

"Perhaps," Pitch admits quietly without hesitation, earning a startled, but pleased look from the youth. The space between them is not a foot, but an inch.

Frost looks over shyly, then leans in and brushes his lips across a high cheekbone. "This is _your_ night," he whispers, before delivering a closer kiss to the corner of his mouth. "It always was."

Pitch does not say anything, but instead watches Jamie talk into a walkie-talkie, while one of his companions waves glow sticks at a small group of people at the far end of the street. A match is struck while the crowd is pushed back, and after a minute, the air is alive with color and sound. Frost's eyes are fixed on the fireworks, and Pitch's eyes are fixed on Frost. When the Guardian looks at Pitch again, Pitch kisses him, _really_ kisses him, telling himself he is only returning the favor.

Then he tells himself that he's doing it so he has a reason to stick around in order to find out what happened between this youth and the other goody two-shoes. _Then_ he tells himself that he'll stay because Frost's touch is worth more to him than the fear.

Well, shit.

When Frost kisses back, Pitch is willing to admit that the first two excuses were lies, the third might be true, and that the _true_ truth about why he is kissing this young man is because Jack Frost was the first to try to drag Pitch back from the darkness, even if it was for a reason that did not actually involve Pitch.

Beneath the vivid light of the fireworks, the Nightmare King draws the Guardian of Fun closer and threads his fingers through his white hair.

"Wow," Frost murmurs when Pitch allows him to pause for a bit of air, not that either of them need it. "Okay."

Pitch licks his lips, a slow, languorous movement that captures those blue eyes' attention. He tries to find words, but fails for a moment, then finds them again.

"Jack."

So Frost becomes Jack to him in the space of a kiss, and the young spirit looks pleased by the notion.

"Yeah?"

A dull _boom_ puts a pretty array of red and green sparks in the sky, and somewhere down below, North is laughing uproariously.

"Let _me_ take you to dinner."

Jack becomes Pitch's first date. And after the block party at some ungodly hour in the morning, if people in Shibuya see a tall shade and a winter spirit eating noodles on a bench, they move on.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I feel like their relationship jumped from "sorta friends" to "well, hello there", you know? Oh well. I like it.

(Bon anniversaire à moi, by the way.)


	8. Promise

Pitch makes use of November. He makes use of November quite well. He uses that time to flirt with Jack lightly. It's always light. Light touches, light kisses, light whispers and chuckles. It is all meant to coax that frosty heart open so the truth will be revealed.

For the most part, he enjoys it. If he's being honest. Which his is. To himself alone. Jack knows nothing of his inner thoughts, nor does Pitch think he believes that what they have between each other is love. That is a good thing though; at least they're not kidding themselves. And it makes things easier, if he's going to be honest again. No broken hearts, no misunderstandings, no stupid domestic spats.

Jack takes up half of Pitch's time. The other half is dedicated to really diving into his believers and inspiring fresh fear. The delicious taste which wafts up when a poor, unsuspecting victim spies something from his or her worst nightmares lurking in the shadows far surpasses anything he could have dreamed of. He has missed this, and perhaps he is still very sore about losing, and perhaps he sometimes toys with the idea of getting revenge, but at the end of the night in whatever country he's in, when he meets up with Jack Frost, threads shadowy fingers through starlight hair, and breathes in winter, he thinks that revenge can wait a couple of years.

It's in December when he's lying lazily on his stone throne, which he has re-carved and covered in dark silk and cushions. It is very convenient, because it is usually here that he drags Jack when they run into each other somewhere and are suddenly so hungry for one another's lips that they know they will be scandalized if another wandering spirit happens to spy them rutting against one another in the dark. So. This is where the shadows usually dump them. And there hasn't been a complaint since.

In any case, it's December, and Pitch is sitting there, humming because Jack said he would be coming along just as soon as he dumped a little more snow than usual in the Midwest so that kids could have a three-day weekend. As Pitch waits, he hears a little squeak echo about his cavern, and a second later, a bright splash of turquoise comes darting in, along with a large creamy flap of something.

The Nightmare King is not pleased. It's that useless puffball of Toothiana's. He's surprised that he even recognizes it as the exact one Jack had affectionately named "Baby Tooth", which is ridiculous because they _all look the same_. But Pitch has learned. That is not the point, though. He glares because that twittering thing is holding an invitation to North's annual post-Christmas party. Believe it or not, he used to be invited regularly (long, long ago). But then his conflicts with the Guardians grew too serious, and the invitations stopped. Not that he cared. He only ever went once, and regretted it when he walked into a grand room with spirits from all over the world guzzling eggnog, munching on goodies, and making too much noise.

"No," he says when the bird approaches.

She chirps angrily and thrusts it forward.

"Do I look like I want to go?" He waves her away. "None of _you_ want me there. If anything, you're only inviting me because of…" He suddenly lunges forward and snatches the invitation out of her startled hands, because this is _perfect_. He can finally see Jack and those stuck-ups in the same room, perhaps glean more information. Yes, yes, this is very good. "Alright. Since you seem so desperate to have me, I suppose I shall make a brief appearance. Be gone."

Baby Tooth gives him a funny look and darts off, clearly not eager to remain underground any longer. Pitch tears into the invite and skims it. It's the same format as it was centuries ago. Why is he not surprised?

A chilly gust nips playfully at his ears and he sets the paper aside, stretching out his hands. Jack floats right into them out of nowhere, dropping his staff and wrapping his arms around that long, slender neck and delivering an affectionate kiss.

"Well, _hello_ there, handsome."

"Hello," says Pitch, fingers snaking beneath that blue hoodie to gently prod pale flesh. "How was the snowfall?"

"Three-day weekend secured," the youth giggles when a sensitive spot is reached. He wriggles and nestles himself further into the shade's lap until he is comfortably straddling him. "And what have you been doing?"

"Strolling about. Florida was very nice. But mostly, I was waiting for you." God, it's so sappy and almost routine, but it isn't love, which is so _odd_. Yet he likes it. "North sent me an invitation to his silly event."

Jack doesn't say anything. He just leans in and kisses him a little harder than before. Pitch knows he is trying to distract him – and hell, he'll allow it, because the twining of that cool tongue with his is too _good_. The winter spirit moves to his neck and lavishes sweet bites and nibbles on the ashen skin for a moment before pausing to murmur, "You're going?"

"Surprised?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, I'm feeling rather different this year, so I'll go." It's because of Jack. It's always because of him. "Are you?"

A pause. "Not sure."

"Yes, you are," Pitch admonishes, pushing him gently back. Too casual, too sweet, too damn _domestic_. "I understand that you have an issue with the lot, but—"

"Not all of them," Jack says quickly, then glances at the floor. "Look, I—"

"You don't have to talk about it." Pitch knows how this game goes. He has played it hundreds of times before, long before this lovely whelp came along. All he has to do is be patient, and there will come a moment in time when the boy will positively crack like an egg. "I understand."

The look of pure trust he receives lets him know that this is working. He'll know soon, perhaps after the party. He can wait until then. It's only a couple weeks away. But as Jack sighs quietly in relief and rests his forehead against the other's, the king wonders what this strange feeling in his breast is. It can't be guilt. He is not necessarily deceiving the boy, and even if he was, he would never feel guilty. Deception is a part of him. Natural. However, that does not bring him any closer to understanding the pinprick that irritated his heart.

"Do you want to hear about it?" Jack asks suddenly.

Patience, Pitch reminds himself. "Only when you are completely willing." When the young man fidgets, he relents to a bit of his curiosity, but only the lowest degree. "If you really want to tell me anything, explain the toys."

"The what?"

"The toys. The ones you brought to me a few months ago."

The Guardian of Fun flushes and slips from his lap, taking up his staff. Pitch thinks he is going to leave, but he is only taking a turn about this strange, open throne room. Golden eyes track every footstep. At length, Jack says, "They were gifts. From kids."

Believers, then. Pitch thinks about the tender love that had been shown to those worn-out gifts and deems that those believers are all grown up now.

"Well, whenever they felt like they were growing too old for me…they would give them to me. So that, even if they forgot me, I would never forget them."

That pinprick? Yes, that tiny thin poke becomes a claw which rakes over Pitch's insides. Jack does not witness the sudden morphing of his face from watchful to pained. What is this? This is ridiculousness, is what it is. He felt no regret then, so why now? He never regrets anything, aside from when he knows he could have done something better in his schemes against the Guardians. But this…this is a tender hurt and—

"Were those all of them?" he hears himself asking in a very dry voice.

A mirthless laugh echoes about. "God, no. I've got thousands of 'em. Don't worry."

"You were crying then," Pitch points out, the memory causing another pang.

"Oh. Well. I guess I was. Shit." He is crying now. "Um, I'm sorry."

Pitch has the urge to go to him, embrace him, and tuck him away somewhere in the darkness, because the darkness is safe. "They must have meant so much to you."

He does not know why, but that sentence sparks a reaction. A violent reaction. Jack's eyes widen and he inhales desperately. A sharp gasp escapes him and the floor is suddenly slick with frost and sharp icicles reaching upward.

"They—they _did_! But I can't—I just—"

Now Pitch goes to him, carefully avoiding the sharp ice jutting from the floor, and takes him into his arms, allowing his own heat to overpower the cold. He hears himself apologizing to the young spirit, which is unfathomable. Why? Why is this happening? Why does he give a damn?

"No, no," Jack whimpers into his chest. "It's not your fault. I couldn't…remember! Pitch, don't you get it? I _knew_ you would destroy them. I _wanted_ you to destroy them!"

Pitch looks down sharply. "What do you mean, you couldn't remember?"

Those blue eyes are so tearful and so frightened. Pitch does not want to be looked at with those eyes. "I-I couldn't…I couldn't remember who they were from. Couldn't remember the kids. Not a single face or a laugh. So I thought that having you destroy them would spark something in my memory. I had tried everything, but nothing was working, and so I brought every toy of every child I forgot and left them to you. Even after you destroyed them, I remembered the toys, but not who they were from, and it _hurt_. It still hurts."

Pitch takes his face in between his hands and gently runs his thumbs over his cheeks, wiping away the tears that dare to mar that perfect complexion. "Jack, forgetting is natural. We are immortal. We live on. We cannot remember everyone."

"But I _can_. Don't you realize? I've only had believers for thirty years. I still remember the kids I've messed with centuries ago when they _didn't_ believe in me. These gifts were from my believers, and I forgot, don't you _get it?_"

Something does not make sense. "You mean you just forgot about them one day?"

Jack nods, his feeble grip on Pitch's robe tightening.

"Then that is…not normal." There is something in those eyes. "You…you _know_ what happened."

Another nod, perhaps a little harsher. That something in those eyes hardens, and Pitch can practically hear Jack's inner voice willing him to ask the question.

Ask _any_ question about what happened between him and those damn Guardians.

Pitch Black resists. He wants to know—_God,_ he does. But Jack is too fragile right now. So he strokes that snow white hair and croons softly that it was certainly not Jack's fault. Jack cries silently into his chest, and the tears continue as Pitch drags him gently into the shadows, deeper into the forgotten caverns to a place where a soft bed once was frequently used. They remove the barrier of cloth between them and melt into one another, and Pitch holds Jack tightly and promises that the boy will not forget anything else, promises that the Guardians can't touch him, will _never_ touch him again. He takes Jack in a way that ensures that he will be in his mind and heart forever.

Jack faintly murmurs somewhere between the fierce vows and glorious sensations that Pitch does not understand, that it was not entirely the Guardians' fault either, and Pitch understands that much. However, he has known those spirits far longer than he would have liked, and they can be idiots. Clearly, they did something so idiotic that they crossed a very important line.

"Do not worry."

He whispers this when they are lying together afterwards, curled and tangled up with one another, bodies bare, hearts racing, lips seeking gentle purchase against damp skin.

"You will not forget again. And I will not forget you."

Jack snorts lightly, though not disbelievingly. Still, Pitch reinforces his statement.

"Even if the entire world forgets you, I will not. I swear it."

This is the first time he has ever made such an intimate promise to anyone, and it is perhaps ironic that he is making it to the one being whom he should hate. The one who tore him down from the very pinnacle of his power. Ah, well.

When he feels Jack's breathing steady itself against his chest, he allows himself to drift off as well. In addition to this first promise, this is also the first time he finds himself looking forward to North's little party.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Too lazy to actually write sex scenes. Sorry, kids, this rating is not going higher than T. You'll have to wait for _that_ story.


	9. Fight

"What were you expecting?" Jack's face is practically pink with laughter as he watches horror mar the Nightmare King's face. "You've been to one of these before, haven't you?"

Of course, Pitch thinks with growing panic, golden eyes burning from all of the red and green and less of everything in between which was thrown all about the workshop. But by God, it had never been this _awful_. The old Cossack has made things so much worse over the centuries.

First, the decorations. If North had a pet dragon specifically kept for Christmas, it is as if the wretched beast has thrown up a decade's worth of decorations on the walls. Tinsel and garlands, blinking lights and glittering ornaments, oh, and the bells. The goddamn _bells_. They jingle every time someone walks by them, and although it might sound like background noise to the guests who have been coming here for years, to Pitch, they are like nails on a chalkboard—and he usually likes that sound when _he_ does it. But not here. Never here.

Then there is the food. No. Absolutely not. He will not partake in that infested feast of hors d'oeuvres. There are elves crawling all over the place; undoubtedly they have run their grimy little fingers – and worse, their _tongues_ – all over the cookies, and _oh, look_, there is a small pack of them lapping up eggnog from the main bowl like dogs. Never, not ever. He will not eat, not even as Jack tugs him through the crowd saying that he's hungry and that Phil's gingersnaps are to die for.

Oh, the crowd. Right. _The crowd_. Spirits and elementals from every corner of the globe. Nymphs and satyrs and centaurs and elves – the tall, elegant kind, not these stunted little pests. They're everywhere. Pitch knows that North cleans up his workshop for this party after Christmas is over: puts away the raw materials, stores the paints, pushes the worktables together and gets extra benches out of storage for people to sit at. He has been to one of these. But he cannot _stand_ it. There are beings strutting merrily about, here on the first floor, there on the second, leaning on balconies, perched in the rafters, flying this way and that conversationally. He can even see dark spirits like himself – witches, warlocks, dark elves, tengu, even an incubus or two. This is absolutely ridiculous.

"Pitch?"

He's going to kill this brat. "_What?_"

"Food. C'mon!"

"Never," he hisses, yanking his hand out of the pale grasp he utterly craved. "Do you know what those elves do to it? Have you seen—look! He's licking it! Right there!"

Jack reaches up soothingly and puts a hand on his cheek. For a minute, Pitch's mind goes blank. Taking his hand to guide him somewhere in public is one thing; _this_, however, is open affection, almost an admission of their togetherness. Pitch doesn't really care or mind. He'd clear off a table and take Jack on it in front of all prying eyes just to show his claim. Well, maybe not. But he'd leave love bites all over his neck—yes, maybe he should have done that before they came here. Actually, it's not too late—

"You're looking at the wrong table," Jack coos, eyes glistening happily as the shade leans into his touch. "The elves can't go upstairs today. North puts the real snacks up there for the guests, and the main meal will be in the village. You know, that great hall he has?"

Pitch vaguely recalls it from long ago when he had raided that same village. Something about children and a bear. But the memory is foggy as he takes Jack's hand, twining their fingers together. Jack looks surprised, and Pitch wonders if the youth really doesn't want to display their relationship in public. However, those white fingers tighten over his a second later, and he looks _so happy_, so Pitch supposes that they can do whatever they want.

They make their way upstairs and find a long line of tables filled with the same foods that are on the ones downstairs, and more. Jack holds out a cannoli. Pitch blinks a few times before sighing, because perhaps he maybe sort of wants to try a few things. After all, that tiramisu over there looks delectable. He munches on a few things, sips eggnog, and when Jack wanders off to talk to familiar faces, he leans over the balcony to watch the festivities.

The center of the magnificent room is left open for dancing, which has been going on since they got there. He admits that as useless as they are in all other aspects, the little elves can make such merry music. He taps his fingers to the beat and watches couples twirl and lines form, weaving in and out, whilst others clap and laugh.

It's not…entirely awful. Ages upon ages ago, he'd have left as soon as he set foot inside the door. Yet now, despite the noise and the colors and the crowdedness, the Workshop has a charming sort of warmth to it. It is familial. This feeling is familiar too. He cannot recall from where he has felt it, but it is pleasant enough. He supposes that the only reason he has great tolerance for any of this is because Jack hangs out around him all the time. Or…is it he who hangs out around Jack? The youth has him wrapped around his finger, just about. Pitch is certain he'd do anything for that little winter sprite.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice drawls. "Look what the Frost dragged in."

Pitch rolls his eyes. "Ah, yes, how clever. _The_ Frost, I get it. And how are you, Bunnymund?"

The Pooka looks as tall and furry as ever. "I'm alright, thanks fer askin'. S'ppose I ought to return the question."

"But you won't."

"Actually, I will. How are you, Pitch?"

Pitch Black is thrown and disturbed at the same time. He backs up and bumps into a couple of spirits who are trying to guess who will get what in the white elephant gift exchange later. They are good-natured and say it's no problem when he mumbles an apology, so he centers his attention on Bunny, who is looking fairly amused right now. That is the shocking thing. Usually, when they encounter one another, the furry spirit has a sneer or a scowl of contempt wrinkling his nose and lighting up his eyes. Or a smirk of triumph, like thirty years ago. But now, he seems calm and genuine with his question to Pitch's health.

It is stunning, really. It is also _very_ uncomfortable. "I…am well enough. I won't beat around the bush. I don't understand what's going on here."

More amusement. "A post-Christmas party, mate."

"No, no," Pitch hisses, clenching his cup in one hand. "This—you. Why? Explain. I'm here for answers. Jack has not told me much of anything—"

"You got Jack to talk about _that_?" Bunny says, green eyes opening wide. "Kudos to you."

"Wrong. I am unaware of what _that_ is. Something happened between the lot of you and I'm only here to get my answers."

"What for?"

"I'm curious," he deadpans.

"Naw. We know, see. 'Bout the both of ya."

Pitch pales with embarrassment, but Bunny waves the look away.

"It's alright. Can't say we were happy at first, but given the circumstances, I think it's turned out alright." Ah, there is that smirk. "And you seem alright with him too, judging by that scent which is clinging to ya. How many times did you do it before coming here?"

A scream of bewilderment builds up in Pitch's throat, and he jerks violently, sloshing a bit of eggnog on the bannister. "_All_ I am here for is answers."

"And Jack."

"No." A frown. "Perhaps. If you would be so kind as to tell me what—"

"Pitch!" North booms, clomping down some stairs with a delicate glass of sparkling juice in his giant paw. "Aha! There you are! I've been looking for you."

This is getting out of hand. Pitch gives the man a look that says _no_, he does _not_ want to be hugged. North returns the look with one that says _too bad_, and catches him up in a jovial embrace. At least it's one-armed. Pitch suffers gracefully as he is put down, and even manages to take a cool sip of his eggnog with the air of a king. "North."

"Is good Jack brings you here," the Cossack says with a knowing smile.

"It was my decision to come here," snaps the disgruntled shadow. "He had no influence."

"What were you just saying about answers?" Bunny says wryly.

Pitch almost hisses at him to shut up, but it is too late. North understands the comment and his brow furrows with concern. "Ah. That. Yes. Well, I suppose you are wondering what it is you are doing here. Awake."

He has been wondering for months. "An excellent deduction."

North looks pleased with himself, the fat fool. "Isn't it? But about the answers you are wanting, I'm afraid I can't give them."

Why is he not surprised? "I figured as much. No matter. I did not expect any of you to be of any help. There are more ways to find out what's happened than through mere words." Speaking of which, Jack is suddenly there, laughing as he ends a conversation from behind him before turning his attention to the shade.

"Pitch, I—oh, hey."

Those words speak volumes. For one, they are casual. Perhaps a little sheepish, but that might be because he feels as though he has just interrupted an "adult conversation". But the words are also very light, no awkwardness there. Therefore, Jack does not have a problem with these two particular Guardians. For some reason, Pitch is glad for this. He loves it when Jack clings to him, cries quietly into his chest, trusts _him_ alone. But that is when Jack is hurting, and when Jack hurts, Pitch hurts, oddly enough.

He thinks it is odd, at least.

"How've ya been, squirt?" Bunny asks.

"M'good." Jack clings to Pitch's arm though, making him doubt himself on his own interpretation of the winter spirit's previous words. "How're things coming along for Easter?"

"Well enough. Got some new designs I'm trying out on the eggs. If you'd like, you can come by the Warren sometime and tell me what you think…?" Hesitant, as though it's been a while since Jack has come by for a visit.

From the young spirit's shy smile, Pitch takes that as a yes. "Okay. Sure, I'll come by."

Pitch spies an opportunity on the first floor. His heart twists for an unknown reason, for he is going to take meaningful steps to learn where Jack stands with the others. He takes a chance and brushes some hair away from those beautiful, frost blue eyes. "Don't you find it odd that there are no candy canes up here?"

He is well aware of the surprise on the Guardians' faces. Jack is only momentarily stunned before he grins widely and agrees. "Yeah, North! What is up with that? You put the candy canes down there where all the elves could get at them."

North reddens at his mistake. "Was tiny mistake. I had bigger things to worry about."

Jack glances up at his companion. "What's it matter? You want one?"

"Perhaps," Pitch says. "But until I have one, yours will have to do." He playfully snatches the powerful cane from slender fingers. Jack laughs brightly, plants a kiss on his cheek, and trudges to the stairs to fetch him a substitute so the hostage can be returned.

"My God."

Well, time to bear the brunt of their insults. "Do you have something to say?"

"Naw," Bunny chuckles. "Not a thing." North looks like he's trying to contain his laughter, but some sort of puff of air escapes his lips and he has to walk away before any more sound can come out.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pitch watches Jack weave slowly through the crowd. "I'm surprised that you haven't tried to hit me yet. I honestly doubt that whatever happened between all of you was enough to make you forget centuries of conflict with _me_."

Bunny's ears twitch. "No one's forgotten. And as I already said, we weren't really okay with it at first. But you don't have your full powers anymore, fer one. And two, Jack's changed you."

"This is the second time you've seen me since my awakening," Pitch snorts. "What makes you think I've changed?"

Then it happens. Down below, the encounter he was hoping for _happens_. Two figures lock eyes over the elf-contaminated dessert table. Pitch ignores Bunny entirely and gives his attention to Jack's reaction.

The young man stares and stares, while the bird stops flying and sets her tiny feet on the smooth wood of the floor. Then she says something, very brief, very polite. Jack's response is shorter. His frame is tense, rigid, and he snatches a handful of candy canes from a pile and backs away from the table. Tooth is in his face in a flash, her mouth spilling forth words in rapid succession, so fast that Jack can only stand there in stunned silence. When she finishes, Jack staggers and bows his head. He says something very softly, but Pitch can read his lips: "I have to think about it."

Then he walks away.

Bunny drags Pitch away from the edge of balcony with a scowl. "You did that on purpose."

"I did," he confesses. "I don't expect answers from any of you. He is not willing to tell me yet. I will wait for him to speak, but that does not mean that I can't do things to further my own investigation. Will you deny me this?"

"That was _cruel_, what you did."

"Was it? Don't you want whatever this is to end? Don't you want to have him in the same room as the rest of you so you can laugh around hot drinks and tell one another how your day was? Don't you?"

Pitch wonders if it is what he wants too.

Bunny stares at him, ears flattened with contemplation. Then his eyes narrow almost comically, and he sighs heavily. "Fine. But if you…push too hard…"

"Please, Bunnymund," Pitch drawls. "I know how to push people to their boundaries best of all. But…I will try my best."

Jack returns at that moment, leaning heavily on the shade. He mumbles something about the candy canes and pushes them weakly into Pitch's open palm. Once he has his staff back, he manages a smile at Bunny. "Hey, I need a breath of air. See you at dinner?"

"Sure," Bunny says, and he and Pitch watch Jack float up and out the open skylight. "You should probably take him home." As Pitch nods faintly and steps towards one mercifully dark corner of shadows, Bunny adds, "Oh, and don't forget the goodie bag."

"…The _what_?"

The Pooka points with a maniacal grin to a tree that Pitch can't believe he missed. There are stockings hung _everywhere_ on it, all different colors and shapes. Pitch stares and stares and says, "_No_" while Bunny cries "_Yes_" with undeniable glee.

"They have names on them, so find yours and Jack's and get outta here. I'll make excuses to North for you, but he'll understand." A beat. "Go on. It's calling you."

"Oh, shut up." Pitch sinks into the shadows and pops up in a corner down by the wretched tree. It takes him less than a minute to find their stockings, and he snatches them off their branches and holds them up reluctantly for Bunny to see. Bunny chuckles approvingly and gestures to the skylight. Pitch sinks into darkness once more and finds his wintery companion sitting on the edge of the roof.

Jack curls into himself even further when he feels Pitch approach, and when a shadowy hand brushes his shoulder, he slaps it away. "Don't."

Pitch sits down beside him. "Jack. What's wrong?"

"Don't bullshit me. You saw her. You set me up."

"How was I to know she would be down there?"

Jack throws his hands in the air and invades his space, their noses nearly touching. Pitch thinks Jack's eyes are rather beautiful when he's furious, so he nearly misses what he says.

"You said you would wait until I was ready for you to talk."

"I _will_ wait," Pitch reassures him, trying to cup his face, but he leans out of reach.

"No, you'll just back me into a corner until I crack and come crying to you. That's not waiting, Pitch. That's handling me, and I don't want that. Shit, can't believe I thought this thing might have worked out too!"

"Thing?" Pitch inquires too gently. When did he grow so soft, so sympathetic to the spirit's pain? "I'm only doing this because I'm worried about you. It hurts to see you like this."

"Newsflash, buddy: there's no need. We're not friends. We're not lovers. We're just two people who got lonely and hook up sometimes."

It is a cruel, vicious stab at Pitch's heart, and he imagines that a void is forming again in him, a void he thought he had filled with fear and Jack. "You're blowing this out of proportion. I think that if you talk about it, things will get better."

"You—you! What the hell would you know? You're just a shadow I dug up to get back at them! You don't get to give a shit about me, because you're _nothing_ to me!"

The void really does threaten to open itself.

Pitch watches him hurdle himself off the roof and race away through the sky until he is but a speck against the Man in the Moon's gleaming light. Ah. The Lunanoff brat. Pitch scowls at him, but then gives up the expression for something a little more world weary. The words that had been spit with loathing hurt more than Pitch is willing to admit, and he has lost all respect for himself right now as he gazes up at the satellite.

"Well?" he murmurs. "Perhaps you did not need the Guardians to put me in my place every time. All you needed was the boy. If you had sent him to me, he'd have brought about my downfall singlehandedly. Congratulations."

His heart aches and he does not know why.

The answer comes in a soft whisper that he has not heard in a few decades. When it graces his ears, he blinks and squints at the home of the young royal. Then, after a moment of consideration, he stands, clutching the party favors. "Don't think I have changed too much, old friend."

The Man in the Moon does not respond again, but his words are still ringing in Pitch's head, throbbing in his breast, branding themselves onto his heart. It is the truth, which is why, when he thinks of Jack, everything hurts all the more, especially the painful acknowledgement that he and Jack Frost have just had their first fight. The unfortunate chances are that it will not be their last.


	10. One to Say

He has preserved a frigid gust of wind from the Arctic Circle; when he disperses the small globe of shadows he holds in his hand, the cold breeze shoot down the tunnel as an informal, false summoning.

His mind is very distracted. He wonders where Jack is. He has not seen him since yesterday. Since their foolish little spat. Pitch wants to say it was Jack's fault, but his heart will not allow it. He will take all the blame if need be. However, he is plagued by unanswered inquiries. He wants to know where Jack is, _how_ he is, if he is still angry with him. That is the most worrisome thought of all. What if the spirit will not return? He wasn't at the lair when Pitch last checked.

A rhythmic thumping mercifully pulls him from his thoughts, and he clasps his hands behind his back and watches the Pooka come bounding into this smaller chamber of the Warren. "Didn't expect ya to show up so soon, mate!" When he sees Pitch instead of Jack, his ears twitch with confusion, then droop with annoyance. "Aw, cripes. Whadda ya want?"

"You know what I want." Bunny scowls, but Pitch spreads his hands almost pleadingly. "I am blind to his troubles, Bunnymund. I am worried. He did not come home last night."

"Home?" Bunny latches onto the word with a suspicious look and a teasing gleam in his green eyes. "What do you mean?"

Pitch blinks at him. Yes, what _does_ he mean? Home? His lair can hardly be called one. It is certainly not suited for a Guardian. For Pitch? Oh, certainly. He's been living there for as long as he can remember, but now he has this…wonderful creature by his side, and he wants to give him something more. Thanks to Lunanoff's words and the truth which is now inscribed on his heart, he wants to give Jack Frost the world.

"Whoa, whoa, wait. Did you say he didn't come _back_? I thought you two left together."

"We had a fight. He left. I have not seen him since." The Nightmare King pauses imploringly. "I can help him. I _want_ to help him."

He can see the Guardian of Hope hesitate, and he cannot understand how this is a difficult decision. Jack is a part of the team, so Bunny should naturally want to take advantage of any opportunity that comes along to put things right. After a moment, he jerks his furry head. "Let's take a walk."

This is the first time Pitch has been to the Warren under invitation—although, now that he thinks about it, he wasn't really invited. So this is the first time he has been here without malicious intent, the first time Bunny has not attacked him for his intrusion. They walk; Pitch eyes the winding streams of bright spring colors with distain. Bunny notices the look and laughs, and points out the new trees and vines he recently planted in order to facilitate new designs.

"What can you tell me about the fight?" Pitch asks as Bunny checks on his plants.

Those large ears droop. "Which one?" he asks wearily. "There were so many."

"Start from the beginning."

"We'd be here for a long time, and I don't feel comfortable giving you some of the details that aren't mine ta give."

"Then start with the teeth. That is what started this, isn't it? He saw something in his memories—"

"Well…not exactly. Who'd ya talk to? Jamie?"

"Yes, though he said he did not know everything."

"Yeah. What really happened was…worse than Jack seeing something from his own memories. See, he went to Tooth for his box. And he took it away and looked through it for a few days. When he got to the end of his life, he…wanted to know what happened to his sister. And Tooth…made a mistake. She gave him the little girl's teeth."

Pitch knows what Toothiana does, but he does not understand the mechanics or magic behind her job. "But all he had were her baby teeth. He couldn't have known what happened to her as an adult. Could he?"

Bunny nods gravely. "Baby teeth are collected, and the adult teeth are left in the skull when humans die. However, the memories can transfer to the original teeth. Had Jack lived longer into his adulthood, he'd have more of his memories to look through, and maybe the incident would never have happened."

"But then we'd never have met him," Pitch says quietly. Bunny smiles a bit. This moment is too odd. They should not be standing here, conversing like polite acquaintances. All he wants to do is find Jack, go home, and hide away in the dark. However, he has some answers to find. "What did he see?"

Apparently, this is one of those "details" that the rabbit isn't comfortable with disclosing. "You've gotta ask someone else. But after that…well, _we_ made a mistake. He had his little episodes, and we tried to…fix him."

Pitch rears up, snarling, "He does not need to be fixed!"

Bunny sinks even further onto his haunches, eyes wide, paws curled inward. "I know. We know. Now. But at the time, we thought…"

"No, you _didn't_ think."

A shaky breath. "No, I guess we didn't. What we tried to do was…awful."

"Does it have something to do with the toys?"

Once upon a time, it would have brought Pitch great cheer to watch this nuisance of a Guardian wilt with sorrow. However, it makes him sick at this very moment, not because he gives a damn about Bunnymund, but because his reaction reveals that the toys are tightly intertwined with Jack's ordeal.

"He…told you?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, that's…oh."

Silence stretches between them, disrupted only by the marching of tiny feet and soft splashes as the tiny, animated eggs jump into the streams. Then Bunny gives himself a shake, as though rousing himself form a cesspool of distress, and looks at Pitch. "If I were you, I'd talk to Sandy. And maybe Tooth, if you're up for it."

Pitch is up for anything. He thanks Bunnymund politely, surprising them both, and even more surprising is when the Guardian invites Pitch back to discuss hiding places for eggs. "After all, you're pretty good at hiding, bein' the snake you are." Pitch takes that as an immense compliment, and says that he would not mind returning.

"Find Jack first," Bunny advises quietly as he slips into the shadows.

As it happens, Pitch does not have to look far. As soon as he steps into his lair, he knows Jack is there. The slight dip in the temperature and the smattering of frost on the walls are obvious hints. Pitch dives into the black tunnels of his home until he finds the boy curled up on that lonely bed they usually frequent when they are in a mood. He is on his side, facing away from the door, the perfect picture of cold dejectedness.

Pitch wants to sweep him up in his arms and hold him close, purge his soul of all the wrong he has suffered. But he does not know if he has been forgiven yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he spies their stockings lying on the old bureau. Maybe he can lay Jack's on the bed and slip out unnoticed so that the boy can have his rest. He moves to the dresser and picks them up, but freezes when the bells that are sewn along their edges – he'd forgotten – ring too merrily.

Jack does not move.

Pitch sighs. He now knows the young man is not asleep. There would have been some sort of faint stirring, for he is not that deep of a sleeper.

He pads over to the bed and sits hesitantly on the edge, then pushes himself to the center. He puts Jack's stocking between them, then begins to rifle through his own. At first, he considers tossing out all of the candy which spills onto his lap, but as he looks and looks, he decides that he does not mind candy canes, and he has always had a soft spot for dark chocolate, so perhaps the sugar can stay. There are also cards with holiday recipes for eggnog, gingersnaps, fig pudding, and more. Pitch does not bake, but perhaps he could keep these, just because. Several tiny gifts tumble out too, and he starts to unwrap one.

Jack shifts. Pitch freezes.

The winter sprite rolls over slowly and fixes Pitch with a Look. The shade is not sure what it signifies, but it is a Look nonetheless, so it must be meaningful. Jack tucks his own stocking under his arms and wriggles closer until his head rests on a dark thigh. Pitch is not sure where they stand, so he hesitantly raises a hand and rests it on his soft head. When he is not reprimanded, he cards his fingers through the shock of white hair and continues to open his gifts with one hand.

They are little baubles: a tiny fairy charm, a small glass ornament filled with undying, ever-flickering flames of gold, and an enchanted bell which only rings when he wills it. He then feels two more packages in the bottom of the stocking. That would explain why the whole thing felt heavier than when he had retrieved it last night. He pulls them out and weighs them, then starts to unwrap the heavier one. Jack lifts his head to watch.

There is mint lip balm, peppermint hand lotion, and a pine-scented candle, all wrapped up with a pretty blue bow. When he looks at the tiny card dangling from the set, he reads "Winter Skin Care Kit".

"That one's from me."

Pitch looks down at him with a small, hesitant smile. "You?" He is hesitant because he cannot read Jack's face. It is so neutral that it is nearly frightening.

"Yeah. I was going to have North rig the white elephant gift exchange so that you would end up with it, but…" And that is all he says on the matter.

Pitch drops an absentminded kiss on his forehead, and only when he realizes what he's done does he apologize with a gaping mouth. However, Jack's eyes glitter, as though he does not mind, and he says, "Open the other."

Pitch does so obediently, and is gifted with a scarf made of the thickest yarn he has ever seen. It is as black as his shadows, as warm as his skin, and as soft as Jack's hair. The pale spirit pipes up, "Do you know how many times I had to unravel it because the stitches were too loose? Pippa taught me."

The image of Jack settling down in an armchair with a skein of yarn and a pair of knitting needles while Pippa Bennett instructs him is amusing, but Pitch decides that he can laugh later. He rolls over the young man and loops the scarf about his neck, drawing him upwards. His hands replace the scarf and he mashes their lips together desperately. Jack responds eagerly, wrapping his arms around that dark neck and pressing their bodies closer. They nip and lick and suck, trying to make up for whatever happened yesterday.

Pitch wishes he could apologize for what he intends to do. "Jack."

"Mmn…yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I said stuff that I shouldn't have. I take it back. You're not nothing to me. You _are_ my friend. Heck, maybe even my best friend, next to Jamie. Never thought that would happen."

The shadow is torn between joy and sorrow. To hold such a high status in the youth's life is a great honor, but the status is not high enough for him. He wants to be so much more, like how Jack is to him. "You don't understand. I'm sorry for that. And for what I will do. What I _must_ do."

Jack pulls back hesitantly. "What…do you mean?"

"I am going to talk to them. I need to know." The youth jerks uncooperatively, but Pitch holds him fast, clutching him to his chest. "Please, _please_. I will take every single word with a grain of salt, but I think if I learn more—"

"No," he chokes out.

"Please, Jack." Those words are burning in his heart, words that he has to say. "I care about you enough to want to do this. You must understand that."

Icy hands slam into his chest, but they only generate enough force to loosen his hold and make him sit up. He sees Jack staring at him, furious, teary-eyed, _hurt_, and he takes that as his blatant cue to leave. He gathers up his gifts and puts them in his stocking—he is actually considering hanging the wretched thing up somewhere—but not the scarf. That, he wraps once around his neck.

Jack speaks suddenly as he climbs off the bed. "You don't have to. Please, just don't ask and I'll tell you when I'm ready."

"It will tear you apart while you wait. I can't allow that."

"And why the hell not? Pitch? Pitch! Come back here!"

He pauses at the door. All he wants to do is rush over, climb into bed, and cover the boy with himself. The spirit is just sitting there, hair mussed, lips red, cheeks pink, eyes red-rimmed and watery.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"You're mistaken. You do this to yourself."

"Why do you even care?"

There are words burning his tongue. He must say them. So he smiles serenely. "You want to know why I care? The answer is the most obvious thing in the world, Jack."

The Guardian stares at him, waiting, straining his ears.

"It's because I love you."

The reaction is not what he expects. Even if he does not know what to expect. If anything, it is far worse. Jack Frost shuts down. His eyes dim, his mouth slackens, his entire face grows cold and hard and blank. The most awful voice punches through his teeth as he grits out dispassionately, "And what would you know about love?"

That void—he thought it had healed, but it had wavered last night. The void threatens him again. He tries to ignore it.

"A great deal. I _know_ about love," Pitch insists, for it is true. Once, long ago, he knew love well. He knew how to love. Although he tries not to remember that age, he thinks it cannot be too difficult to relearn. Not if Jack Frost is the one he loves.

"Do you? I find that hard to believe."

"So you know love much better than I?" He doesn't mean for the inquiry to be insulting. It is only a curious question.

Jack sneers. "I know a kind of love. And it's the same as yours, I bet. _If_ you're telling the truth. But if you are, and if it is, then I don't want it. I'll never want it, never again. So you can take your love and _fuck off_."

The void rips itself open, roars its renewal and begins to consume him from the inside out. And yet, in the midst of the black hole, Pitch still smiles, albeit sadly. "I do love you, Jack. But I can wait for you too."

"You're gonna be waiting for a long time."

Jack Frost turns away and lies down; the sight of his cold back is the sign that this conversation has long since been over. There is no point in lingering. Pitch goes into the main cavern and jumps through shadows to his globe. From the protruding point of Alaska, he hangs the silly stocking while he soothes his broken heart with the faint victory that he has said _those_ words first. He never would have thought…

Well, he has been doing many things lately that he never thought he would do, thanks to Jack. He has changed…no, he is merely more open to new ways of life. But he is still the dark, cynical spirit he has always been. Always.

_Always?_

He shakes the thought away. Open-minded he may be, but he will use his unsavory qualities to his advantage. It is time he and Sanderson Mansnoozie had a very serious, unpleasant talk.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Wow. An update the very next day. I can explain. First order of business: I might not have internet access where I'm going for Thanksgiving tomorrow, meaning I won't be able to update until Monday, so I said to myself, "They deserve a holiday gift!" So here it is.

Second order of business: if I frightened you with the ghost chapter, I apologize. The website's publisher was being screwy, so that when I uploaded the chapter, it just appeared as a giant wall of text, no new paragraphs or italics or anything. I said to myself (again), "They deserve better than this!" So I deleted it and reposted it the next day when the problem was fixed.

Final order of business: my USB stick, after over four years of loyal service, passed away late last night. Luckily, I had backed up all of my files 10 days prior, so there is not much to mourn, save the loss of a couple of new chapters of other projects, including the one you just read. I had to rewrite it, though I think this version is better. Moral of the story? Have backups. And update them _frequently_.

Sorry for the long note. Happy Thanksgiving!


	11. Fear of Darkness

Little lights of gold dance through the sky and weave their way earthward. They slip through glass and walls and air and twine gently above the tender heads of children, now dreaming of only the purest things which tickle their subconscious. In a way, it seems like delicate work, but the reality is that it is so easy to draw forth what is already inside.

It is that ease which can become a distraction.

Darkness suddenly lashes out and begins to snap the beautiful streams of sand, rendering the dreams moot, the children dreamless. The Sandman is instantly on alert. The golden wall which curls around him as he drops out of the sky and lands on a roof is nigh impenetrable by those faint shadows. However, the shadows hold no interest of trying to get in. Not like thirty years ago.

"We need to talk."

Pitch waits patiently for Sandy to peer out at him. He accepts the venomous glare that pokes through a small hole with an open heart. Quite frankly, the kindness shown to him by the other two has made him a little needy for the good old rivalry he once held, and he is quite sure, no matter how friendly the rest might act, that _this_ Guardian has not forgiven him for nearly ending his existence.

Sandy's shell does not drop, but symbols form outside of it that Pitch can easily interpret.

_Was that necessary?_

"No. I'm just in a mood." An awful mood. He's been brooding about this for the past hour, and right now, he needs answers. That's all he asks for. "What can you tell me about what happened with Jack?"

_That is none of your business._

"Oh, no? Considering what he means to me—"

The dream sand cuts his words off. _You're using him. I don't have time to waste talking to you. I have a job to do._

"He means everything to me now," Pitch says with calm honesty. He does not want to fight. "But I will walk with you, if it's not too much trouble." He is relieved when Sandy's head suddenly pokes out with surprise. That at least means that the spirit is curious enough to hear what he has to say. "I will walk with you while you work, if you'll allow it. All you need to do is tell me what you know. Bunnymund said you had the most knowledge."

A hesitant frown crosses the almost childlike face. _He sent you to me?_

"Feel free to check with him, but I'd like to help Jack as soon as possible, if you don't mind."

The Sandman stares at him, then jerks his head as the walls disintegrate and a cloud forms beneath him again, lifting him up. Pitch propels himself upward and steps with an irritated sneer on the cloud. It is too damn bright, too cheery and golden. He needs darkness. But he needs Jack more. Therefore, he must stay. "I know enough of what happened. I know that he saw something in his sister's memories. Something that made him act foolishly."

_It wasn't his fault that those humans died._

"I know that. And even if he killed them intentionally, I wouldn't blame him." Sandy glares at him. "You know what I think of the humans. Are you surprised? But that doesn't matter. I know he is at odds with Toothiana, but what about you, hm? Did you do something to him?"

He is not ready for the pain which clouds that usually sunny gaze. It is as startling as what he saw in Bunny's eyes when he mentioned this topic. Sandy suddenly starts and looks about at the streams which he has sent out again. They are wavering, and with a frantic motion, he draws them back to him. Everything flies home with a snap, enlarging the cloud. Pitch looks on inquiringly until he shrugs and silently says, _They weren't good dreams. I had to stop before they became sad._

Enough is enough. "What did you do to him?"

Sandy sets his lips in a grim line and waves his hand.

Pitch blinks and finds himself standing in a dark expanse with smoky mist curling about his legs. He has entered that lovely plane which only he and Sandy and few other spirits can go. It is the land of the dream walkers, and he supposes he is in for a show when he sees Jack sitting there, looking down at a tooth box which is not his own.

The youth is trembling, and Pitch is seized by the urge to snatch him up and run, as he usually feels when he sees Jack in pain. But here, in this memory, he cannot interfere.

Jack is sitting on the edge of his pond, shaking violently as though he has just surfaced from the rush of memories, and he looks out his pond in horror and scrambles back off of it as though it burns him. He gets to his feet, looking at it, and the tears come faster than ever. His breath quickens; he is panicking. Pitch's heart aches.

The scene suddenly melts to elsewhere: the Workshop, the Guardians crowding around him, trying to let him know that everything is already.

"Back—_off_."

There is that tone, that tone which sends shivers down Pitch's spine. Ice flares out from Jack's staff, and his friends are pushed away by a cold blast of wind. Jack stands there, panting, still clutching that canister which obviously belonged to his dear sister. He starts to say something, then looks down at it, then back up.

"I…need some air."

A whole slew of incidents suddenly flash before Pitch's eyes on the dream walker plane. Every storm Jack conjures up from then on is seen, with Jack right in the eye of every single one. His mouth is fixed open in a scream of rage and sorrow, and his fingers clench his staff so tightly that for a moment, Pitch thinks the conduit might break. Sometimes, in the passing scenes, he sees human figures in the distance which struggle against the biting, blistering winds, only to slowly lose their warmth and their spirits. Every one of those forms sinks beneath the snow, never to rise again.

The destruction is beautiful, but Pitch feels no love for it now. Not while he looks up at Jack Frost.

The plane grows dark after a moment with lazy shadows rolling across it, and Pitch finds Sandy standing next to him. "What did you do after that?"

Sandy looks like he does not want to say. Instead, he points.

A new scene hazily sets in and sharpens. Jack is asleep on a bed in a dark room tucked far away from the noisy epicenter of the Workshop. He is clearly exhausted. North is nowhere in sight, but in the doorway, two figures hover.

Tooth slips inside first and gently wrests the memory box from Jack's tight grip. There are tears frozen on his pale face. Sandy enters next, grim but determined. He looks to his companion, but is not seeking an answer. He merely wishes to make sure that she is there. Then he reaches for Jack's temple.

Pitch suddenly finds himself in a snowy field he knows well. It is not far from Jack's pond, very close to town. Jack is in the middle, playing with a whole slew of children who are certainly not from these parts. Their ethnicities vary and their words of joy are in foreign languages. These are children whom Jack has played with across the world. However, on the outskirts of the field, standing in the shadows of the trees, there is a woman. She is in her forties. Pitch does not know how he knows this, but he would not have guessed so anyway, because her hair is shockingly grey and her face is surprisingly haggard and weary, like she has given up on life. Her face is also strangely familiar.

The resemblance strikes him: it is Jack's sister.

Pitch feels Sandy shift uncomfortably beside him, but keeps his eyes fixed on the duplicate which floats across the field and heads for the woman.

Jack spies him and looks up, smiling. "What're you doing here?"

The Sandman says nothing and raises his arms. Gold swirls from his fingers and reaches for the woman. Jack, confused, cries out and tries to blast the sand away with his staff, but more rises up in his place. Sandy flashes symbols to the boy: _It's for your own good!_

Realization dawns, and Jack pleads that Sandy not do this. He promises to be good, swears he'll control himself, that she's not being a bother, that he's almost over it, honest. But the Guardian of Dreams is relentless as he tries to rip that unmoving woman from Jack's mind.

It's all too obvious now to Pitch, and he even takes a step forward, but the children are quicker. As part of Jack's subconscious, they surge towards the woman and stand before her, and more children come from the woods behind. The sand tries to slink through, but Jack's mind fights back as long as it can. Then, a single chain manages to weave its way through the crowd and grip the wrist of that old woman.

She gasps: "_Jack?_"

Jack screams.

Light rips a gash in the dreamland; before Pitch is blinded by an explosion of white ice, he sees hundreds of children suddenly whipped aside by the dream sand, which is blown askew. They vanish in a vicious burst of gold, consumed by the sand, and Jack—

Jack is still screaming.

He is screaming when he wakes up and clutches his head, hyperventilating, too immersed in fear to notice that Sandy is standing beside him, shocked and horrified, while Tooth looks on from beyond with a similar expression. The winter spirit is in pain. He pulls at his hair, chokes on his sobs, hides his head between his knees and cries hoarsely, "Wait! Please, I don't—"

And Pitch knows what is happening. Jack Frost is forgetting the names and faces of the children whom Sanderson has accidentally torn from his memory.

Had this been another time, and had he not met Jack through this way, Pitch might have been impressed. He might have cruelly teased the Sandman because he held the power to ruin minds right in his palms, just like his darker counterpart. But this is now. And he has met Jack. And he has fallen in love with him, and he has told him, and he wants to help him, to hurt with him, to be with him. And this…this is too much for his heart to bear.

Pitch Black rises from the land of the dream walkers and feels the cool breeze of the shores of Italy strike his face. He stares at the black ocean in the night, and for once, he is so dazed that he cannot see the stars or the moon. Only the blackness. He looks down at Sandy. The golden spirit's tears have already dried on his face, but Pitch realizes that his own are only just beginning. He does not stop them.

"What have you done?"

Sanderson looks away. He is ashamed. As he should be. So he leaves Pitch Black standing on the cold shores of Italy, and the shade looks out and can only see darkness. He wonders if this is the darkness Jack saw in his mind when he awoke. What was it like, to suddenly forget the names and faces and voices and memories of people that meant the world to him? Was it like this? An empty, black void, like the one in his heart, which stretches hopelessly on and on without an end?

For the first time in his life – at least, for the first time that he remembers – Pitch Black fears the darkness.


	12. Return

He is not received well by Toothiana's underlings, but he barely puts up a fight. The moment one of those little flying rats spots his form emerging from a pool of shadows clinging to the floor in the corner of one of those intricate hanging towers, the alarm is raised, and he finds himself surrounded by effervescent puffballs with pointy beaks. On high, the queen descends, and she has a pair of thin sabers in her hands that Pitch has not seen for centuries.

He cocks his head. "I was wondering what had happened to those."

She looks at him with a frown, seemingly surprised by his presence, then slides the weapons back into their respective places on the gold circlet about her slender hips. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. I need to look at some teeth."

She lands in front of him, eyes immediately sad. It is as though every Guardian has given him that look when he mentions something pertaining to the Incident. He has only said a few words, and she already knows why he is here. "Alright. Come with me." She does not fly, but walks. It is so strange, trailing silently behind her, but he waits until they reach the tower of North America. Tooth flits up to one of the higher tiers for a moment and returns just as quickly with a circular box in hand.

Pitch stares at the carefully hand-drawn picture on the side. "But this is…"

"I know," she mumbles. "I know why you're here. Sandy dropped by a few hours ago. I figured that was the one you needed to see." Pitch ponders at her perceptiveness as she rises into the air again. "You can look at it here, or you can take it with you if you'd like."

He smirks. "Rather trusting for one whose existence I nearly destroyed. Thirty years is hardly long enough to erase my crimes."

"No amount of time is great enough," she agrees, though her smile is weary. "However, no matter what you have done, I think that this time, what we did was worse. You are the enemy, so of course we oppose one another, but…we hurt one of our own. And…" She looks like she wants to say so much more, and Pitch would willingly sit there and listen for once in his life, but she backs out and flies off to do her job.

Pitch finds himself a nice secluded place on the tower where there are not too many tooth boxes or fairies and settles in for a trip down memory lane. When he touches his fingers to the top, the world becomes bright and crystalline before his eyes and he is plunged into the memories of Jack Frost's sister.

He absolutely refuses to linger for long, but he does fast forward to when the little girl sees her sweet brother's death. He does not know the exact details behind Jack's rebirth. All he knows was that the youth drowned. As a matter of fact, he vaguely recalls being there, or at least passing overhead to see a figure plunge beneath the ice. The spike of fear had been delicious. However, he had not given it a passing thought.

Now he sees how she screams in shrill terror as the water splashes a bit over the fractured ice, beneath which that lithe body has just disappeared. Pitch listens closely and can hear the harsh pounding of Jack's heart slow into something softer after a minute, and eventually stop altogether. He releases the breath he has unconsciously been holding; at least death came quickly and Jack did not suffer much. If anything, the brutal shock of the icy water hopefully made much faster work.

The little girl's shrill cries bring her parents, and other villagers. They herd her away and wonder if they should break up the ice in a late rescue attempt, but everyone with eyes can see that the best that they can do is fish out the body, or at least wait until spring to do so. Through the confusion, Pitch watches the girl bury herself in her mother's warm skirts, while the woman chokes back a sob. Strangely enough, her daughter has suddenly stopped crying. At least, she has stopped making sound. She stands there, trembling, and slowly turns to look at the pond.

Pitch is not sure what it is, but there is something in her wide brown eyes that is feverish and a bit desperate. He starts when she takes several quick steps forward and steps onto the ice, whispering, "_Jack_."

Her mother screams and two men capture the child quickly before she can do anything foolish.

Pitch blinks and the scene melts on into the girl's life. She grows into a gangly, awkward little teenager with homely dresses and thin lips and a straight back. Jack Frost always returns to Burgess, sans memories, and stirs up a bit of fun for the children. Pitch cannot see it, but he recognizes the spirit's work like the back of his hand. When they dash about through the snow, however, she looks upon them as though they are idiots, for she has learned that it only takes a little crack in the ice to end everything. No one realizes that Jack Frost's ice is strong and solid and infallible, though. Not even her. Then again, no one realizes that Jack Frost exists.

She moves into young adulthood and everyone now knows her as the girl who does not know how to smile, or the girl who does not know how to have fun. One young man comes along and somehow manages to be just right for her. He is funny, but knows how to be serious around her enough that she is comfortable. And they love each other. Pitch can see that. So they marry.

She has her new husband build her a house close to the pond—the pond where her dear brother died. And every day, she looks out the window, staring at that place. Through spring, summer, and fall, she goes and sits by the water's edge every day. In the winter, after Jack has visited – though she does not know this – she walks right out into the middle of the pond and stands there, looking down at the very spot her brother plunged through.

It is maddening behavior. _She_ is mad. Her husband worries for her, but never questions her strange obsession. He grew up in the village knowing the story of poor Jackson Overland and his untimely demise.

The woman is impregnated sometime later, and she gives birth to a girl, then a boy a year later. She does not name the child "Jack" as Pitch thinks she will. However, something changes a few years after the second birth. She allows her children to play with others, but absolutely forbids them from venturing near the pond. They never disobey her on this order. Not only because they know the story of their would-be uncle, but also because something in their mother's eyes makes them fear for their safety. Not from the pond. From _her_.

The husband, he knows she would never…and yet, through the woman's eyes, Pitch sees his hesitation when he catches her staring at the pond. The Nightmare King supposes he can understand why Jack grew so upset over this. Naturally the boy must have wanted to vent some frustration because he was not there for her, but despite the few lives that were lost due to those storms, that gives no reason for the Guardians to have tried to remove the memories of this woman from his head.

Pitch is still immersed in these images, and he feels the canister in his hands. If he lets go, he can just find Jack and comfort him and try to mend the rift between that little group, even though he would rather have Jack all to himself. However, something in that woman's gaze makes him clench the box tighter and urge the magic to show him the end.

To his surprise, it is the next winter, according to what the spell tells him in his soul. There she is, looking out on the ice. She takes a few steps out onto it, then pauses hesitantly, looking around. Then she shuffles the rest of the way forward to the place Jack had plunged down. A warm breeze sweeps the pond and she turns her head skyward with an unintelligible prayer.

Pitch starts. Winter is ending. Spring is almost here. And she is stupid enough to stand on the thin ice which is barely keeping her from the still frigid waters below. "You," he starts to say, but she cannot hear him.

And then there is movement out of the corner of his eye.

_Jack_ is there.

How this is possible, he is not sure, because that woman looks in his direction and still does not seem to see him. So how is it that he is showing up in this memory?

The youth twirls his staff and stands on the pond, blinking and watching with curiosity. "Lady? Hey, you shouldn't stand there."

Why doesn't he just reinforce the ice so that she does not fall in?

"_Jack_," Pitch says urgently, wondering if somehow, something with this canister is faulty, or perhaps Jack is actually there somehow. But no, this is clearly a memory. The woman cannot see Jack, yet Jack is there.

She shifts, and the ice cracks.

Jack looks on impassively. "Lady, if you can hear me…no, why do I even bother?"

Pitch watches. Jack is not being cruel. He is simply…neutral. This is not like him.

Suddenly, _she_ looks straight at the frosty figure. Jack starts, eyes lighting up with hope as she whispers, "I believe in you, Jack. So I know you'll save me. I'm not scared anymore."

It floors the boy, and he takes an excited step forward. However, he suddenly pauses and his face lapses into grim annoyance, because she _does not see_.

She is praying to Jack, Pitch thinks. The old Jack. The brother who risked his life for her.

"Someone else, huh?" the winter spirit mutters _so_ bitterly, raking a hand through his white locks. "Well, he's got a nice name, at least."

His sister continues to look straight at him, and something in her gaze is warm and trusting, despite the icy nature she has maintained through the years. "I believe in you," she says again, and shifts.

Ice splinters.

Jack does not move.

And so, the woman of Jack's past, his dearest sister, leans into the ice, which cracks and breaks apart, and Jack looks on with surprise and discomfort while she is lost to the depths of the dark, biting water.

That is all.

Rage flares up in Pitch's heart at the lost expression gracing the spirit's face; he knows Jack could not have physically touched her to give his aid, but the least he could have done, _the least—_

"He didn't know."

He gasps as he is wrenched out of the memories by soft hands curling over his. He looks at Tooth, who is sitting beside him, her wings drooping, eyes saddened. After a second, he snaps, "What do you mean he didn't know? He was right there! All he had to do was reinforce the ice and she would have lived."

"But he didn't, Pitch. It's because he was a young spirit and it was not uncommon, and he felt a connection with children more than adults anyway. The Man in the Moon chose him _because_ of his bond with children. Because of how Jack died, it is in his nature to care more for the little ones. Of course, he tries to take care of all humans _now_, but…back then? Well, I suppose I can't justify it, but what do you want me to say?"

Slowly, the unusual sting of anger fades from Pitch's chest, replaced with horror. "What did _he_ want you to say?"

She traces her fingers over the memory box. "I…don't know. I guess we said the wrong thing. We were at the Workshop when he finished looking through all of the memories. He came to us and showed us, and we thought it was awful, but we didn't throw a big fuss. We...we went about it all wrong!"

"He wanted you to chastise him," Pitch clarifies. "Because not only was it a life that he did not try to save, but also because it was his sister. He looked her in the eye and heard her say that she believed he would save her, and then he watched her die without moving a muscle. He believed that he deserved some form of reproach."

"Yes."

"And because you did not tell him what he wanted to hear, he felt so guilty from it that he went off to vent."

"I…yes. I guess…we said that it was awful, but it was in the past and he didn't have to worry about it, even if it was his sister. We said he was making a big deal out of nothing. That made it worse. The guilt just consumed him and then the storms started, and the winters ran long, and we tried to tell him—we said such stupid things! We tried to convince him to stop by using her death as a reminder, but he grew angrier. We said that more lives would be needlessly lost, but the storms grew harsher."

Pitch can see it all now. Everything is falling into place. "So you told him to forget about it, and he couldn't. And now people are dead, and you tried to prevent more deaths by erasing his memory. Which was an accident," he adds when he sees her heartbroken expression.

"Sandy was just trying to reach for _her_. All of those kids got in the way! It was so rare for Jack to be having a good dream at that time. We didn't think he would. He'd drop by North's to take a nap sometimes, but all he'd have were nightmares, and he'd wake up screaming, and his entire room would be frozen. We thought it would be simple, but we should have never interfered."

"Whose idea was it?"

She swallows. "Bunny…made a passing comment at a meeting when Jack was out. It wasn't a joke, but it was just a theory. Like, if there was a way to just make Jack forget he had ever seen his sister's memories. After the meeting was over, I…" She chokes up, and Pitch curses the man Jack has made him today, for he covers her hands comfortingly with his and waits for her to find her strength. "…I went to Sandy and said it could be done, and I could show him how. So we went, and I was going to take back the teeth, and then Sandy would go in, pull out the memory, and store it somewhere…"

Pitch has almost heard enough. He just wants to find his winter sprite. "Why did Jack show up in the memory? She couldn't see him."

Tooth sniffles pathetically, and Pitch is quite tempted to pull away, but he forces himself to remain a statue. "I wish I could explain that, but I can't. My only theory is that…maybe she _did_ see him."

His heart stutters with amazement.

"…Did you tell him that?"

"No. He never asked. The thought came to me sometime later, but he was already in such a fury that I didn't want to make it worse. Learning that would crush him! You can't tell him. If you want to help him so much, then you just _can't_."

Pitch nods slowly and rises, depositing the box in her delicate hands. One final query pushes into his skull and he nearly laughs, because all this time, he has only been thinking of Jack and his involvement in this whole mess, when he had originally started prying to find out answers about himself. He supposes now is as good a time as ever to ask.

"Why did Jack wake me up?"

The fairy blinks, then glances away. An odd light gleams in her eyes. She does not speak for several moments, and Pitch is almost willing to just walk away, because this isn't about him anymore. It's about Jack. But—

"He wanted to get back at us."

His soul suddenly feels cold.

"You mean—"

"I don't know what he would have done if you had awoken with power and strength. But you wouldn't have needed much convincing, I bet." She does not say it cruelly. "What we did was unforgivable, and he was willing to…do something unforgivable in return. That meant bringing our greatest enemy back to power." She pauses. "I suppose only Sandy and I were targets. But I would not have been angry either way if you were strong, and neither would Sandy."

"Is that why you were so cordial upon seeing me on Halloween?"

"Jack told us what he had done later that same day, and he wasn't sorry for it, but he told us you were weak and weren't much use to him."

That cuts him deep, but he purses his lips and remains silent.

"We weren't so sure. We thought he wanted us to drop our guard, so we were waiting. Thinking that he – that _you_ would get us when we least expected it. We didn't bear him any grudge though. No one did."

Pitch snorts. "Well, that backfired splendidly."

Tooth laughs wetly. "It did, didn't it." At last, she looks at him again. "I guess you should go find him. Do whatever you can to make him smile."

The Boogeyman steps into the shadows of a detailed archway and inclines his head at the queen. "You put too much faith in my abilities."

"Not at all. I believe in you."

If his heart warms at those powerful words, he does not say a word. And he never will. "What makes you so sure that he'll listen to me?"

She smiles rather calmly for one who has ruined the life of a friend. "After seeing his sister's memories, he didn't return to Burgess for a long time. It was only after we…tampered with him that he thought of getting you. _You_, Pitch Black, are the cause of his first return to his home in a long time."

* * *

**Author's Note:** "It's _finals week_," she snarled.


	13. Reconciliation

The Nightmare King hunts. Tonight, he is rather ruthless. He slinks along with the night zone and terrorizes the nubile young minds of children across the world, bringing touches of darkness to their dreams. He does not need the dream sand. That was merely to defeat the Sandman. Granted, it gave him great control over the dreams of children, but he can settle for merely tainting them and watching where the fear takes them. He is rarely disappointed.

He stays ahead of Sanderson, however. He figures that perhaps he should let the little brats find some golden relief after his tormenting ways. There is a reason he is doing this right now, however. He is searching for Jack Frost.

It has hardly been an hour since he left the Tooth Palace, and he has covered a great deal of territory in the night zone, yet there is no sign of the boy. He should probably be looking in the daylight, but right now, his heart is unconsciously holding him back.

Toothiana's words have shaken him. He tries to put it to the back of his mind, he really does, but…was that truly what Jack had said after he dug Pitch up? That he was useless? Then what about now? What about their relationship?

His mind replies that there is no relationship. Not with how they had last parted, with Jack lashing out and saying such cruel things. Pitch thinks that perhaps he should just hide for a while. The clock is turning to December thirtieth all across the world, and that means that the New Year will be approaching in another day. Perhaps he can wait for that, and then he'll tell himself that everything is fine and he can start his search for Jack again. He just needs to rest.

Behind him, a glow of gold has started to catch up. He turns on his cloud of shadows and snarls. Why is the little nuisance so swift in his work tonight? All Pitch wants is a good meal, some time to think, and Jack. The latter of which he will probably not be getting anytime soon. He crosses his arms and waits impatiently for Sandy to draw near, then snaps, "_What_?"

The symbols fly up. _You're looking for him._

"If it was that obvious, then why are you trying to hinder my search?"

_I simply wanted to know what you're going to do for him when you find him._

"_If_ I find him. My shadows cannot sense him anywhere. God knows where he's hiding."

_He is not at your home?_

"No," Pitch mutters glumly. "And really, whatever I say to him is none of your business." He makes to go, but a hand on his arm holds him firm for a moment.

Sanderson looks rather tense with what he is about to sign, but he exhales and the sand swirls. _I suspect that the next time we meet, it will be in battle. I think the only way to appease him is to have you fight myself and Tooth. But no matter what happens, I want to thank you for doing this for him. Because I _know_ what he means to you._

The message is shocking. Had this all played out differently, yet with similar results, Pitch would have leapt at the chance to use Jack's desire for revenge simply as a way to destroy the Guardians. But of course, now this is the last thing he wants. The reason he fell in love with that mischievous spirit was because of the light within his heart and the way he always stayed by Pitch's side. To snuff out these do-gooders might satisfy the both of them, but the darkness would also consume them too, and Pitch cannot stand to watch Jack's spark disappear.

He hesitates with the words, but slowly extends a grey hand and says softly, "I will try to see that it does not come to that."

Sandy positively beams at him like he knew Pitch was going to say that – perhaps he did – and shakes his hand amicably, then dashes off to do his work. Pitch rolls his eyes and tests his shadows while stalling in the night sky, trying to see if anyone has entered the lair back in Burgess. All remains undisturbed, so he prepares to spread more fear and look some more. Then, he recalls something. Of all the Guardians, North is the least involved in Jack's emotional pain. In addition to that, didn't Tooth say he liked to take naps at the Workshop?

Pitch raises his arms; the shadows swirl and deposit him on the front porch of the Cossack's grand abode. The yetis spy him and grumble for his departure, but he only has to wait a few minutes in the cold before North opens the door with a knowing look and guides him inside.

"I was wondering when you would figure it out," the Guardian of Wonder says, returning to the main center of the massive building. Production is slow, if not almost non-existent. The New Year is approaching, and they are not in so great of a rush at this moment, as usual. "He has been here for a day or so. You two fought?"

"Just a little argument." But Pitch's head swivels quickly from room to room on the higher floors, trying to guess which one holds his pale treasure. "If you could tell me where he is, I'd be grateful."

"Then…you know?"

He casts North a sideways glance. "I do."

"Then do you know what to say to fix all of this?"

"It's not going to be over in a snap," Pitch says impatiently. "It will take time." And, to be honest to himself, he is not even sure of how he will begin the conversation. Jack has already rejected his love, and apparently he thinks the shade is utterly useless. Pitch actually _doesn't_ want to go see him, but his heart urges him onward.

North leads him up a couple flights and gestures to a guest room. The doorframe is tinged with frost, and the air grows colder the closer they get. "I am thinking you want to be alone, but I will send up hot chocolate later, yes?"

The king huffs impatiently and waves him along. "If you must." North gives him a final look of encouragement and heads back down, leaving Pitch to stare hard at that imposing door. What if Jack doesn't want to talk to him?

No. No hesitation. He has no time for that. He grasps the doorknob and tugs. It grates against the ice buildup, but eventually swings open. Pitch shivers as he shuts the door behind him and immediately focuses on his core, feeling his body heating to stave off the chill. He lets some shadows slink about the room to rid it of its ice and bring some warmth back in. Meanwhile, he focuses on the body which lies asleep on the frost-covered bed.

His heart floods with relief from the peace which graces the spirit's face. He must be having good dreams. Pitch goes to his side and stretches out a hand to caress the pale skin, then thinks better of it. He should let Jack dream while he can. Besides, his touch only provides nightmares. To his surprise, however, those dark lashes flutter, and bright blue eyes lock onto him immediately.

"What are you doing here?" Jack's tone is very neutral and bland.

Pitch sits in the plush chair by the bedside and folds his hands in a very polite manner. "I couldn't find you, but I figured out that you were here. Will you come home?"

Jack stares for a second, then turns his head so he is staring at the ceiling. "Home to your love?"

Ah. Right. The words become a knife that stabs at that damn void which he thought he had forgotten about since last departing from Jack. Apparently not. "You don't have to accept it. But if you would like to just come back with me…" He quiets as Jack holds up a hand.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

He sighs. "Yes."

"So you know everything?"

"Yes."

"And what do you think?" The voice is suddenly very small.

Pitch searches his heart for a moment. What does he want to say? He sympathizes completely with Jack, understands that it hurts so much, knows precisely why he wanted revenge and even finds it justifiable. But Pitch also knows that revenge is not what Jack needs. What he needs is something wholesome to soothe his broken mind and mend his thoughts—and suddenly Pitch knows exactly what to say. With that decision, he reaches out and touches Jack's face. The young spirit leans into the warmth and brings up his own hand to touch him, leaving Pitch to state his answer:

"I will slaughter them."

The shocked blink is exactly what he expects to see, and he tries not to sag with relief, because he knows that everything will be alright.

"Yes. You see, it has been brought to my attention that you awoke me for revenge's sake, yet I was not what you wanted when I awoke. I was weak, and therefore I was useless to you." It hurts to admit that, and from the look on Jack's face, the shade was apparently never supposed to know what he had said to Toothiana. "I will prove my usefulness to you, Jack. I promise. I will kill all of them."

His heart does not get the thrill that he hoped it might upon uttering those words. Once upon a time, maybe. But now? No. Oh well.

Jack looks very uncertain, even a bit frightened. "You just…want an excuse to do it."

"No. No, it's not that. It will never be that way again. If taking them out isn't what you want from me, then I can gladly do something else. But what I am offering to do right now is for you. I'm doing this _only_ for you."

The room is feeling warmer, the ice melting, the frost receding. His shadows lift away the frost covering the bead, leaving it dry and comfortable. He climbs under the covers and nudges Jack's body over, ignoring his gasp of protest. He has to do this now without hesitation, or the youth will never heal.

"Any other suggestions? No? Then here's my plan," he says, lying on his side so they face one another. "I will start with North, and then I will move onto Bunnymund. But who would you prefer to go next? Toothiana because she came up with the scheme? Or Sanderson because he made the mistake?"

Jack searches his gaze with wide eyes, and when he sees Pitch's unwavering determination, he blanches, his voice cracking. "You would really…?"

Pitch grabs his cold, pale hands and presses a fierce kiss to his wrist. "You haven't the slightest idea of what I would do for you now. But I will do this." Yes, he will destroy the Guardians as best he can if that is Jack's final wish. Whether he will take pleasure from it this time around or not, he can't be sure. "So tell me: the bird, or the puff?"

"I—I don't…" Jack's breath comes in quick pants and Pitch squeezes his hands harder, silently willing him to make the right decision. He is so close to the light.

After lying in silence for a full minute, he kisses the pale forehead and says, "You don't need tell me now. Plenty of time. I have some ideas on how to do away with North, but if you want something specific—"

"_Stop!_"

Jack's soft cry fills the quiet air as he buries his face in Pitch's broad chest. The shade shudders with relief when he feels cold tears hit his collarbone, and he wraps his arms around Jack and nearly crushes him in his embrace. "God, Pitch, don't, _please_ don't do anything! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it—I would never—If you'll really do anything for me—"

"Then I won't even touch them," he vows gruffly, lifting Jack's chin and pressing their lips together. He slides his tongue against his lips and is accepted into the cold cavern. It is his sanctuary, his respite from a long day, and as Jack tangles his fingers in his hair and sighs happily as their tongues slick against each other, he once again assures himself that everything will be alright. The rift between the Guardians and this youth will be mended, and he will smile again, and maybe, just maybe—

"You swear," the frost spirit gasps when they break apart. "You won't—you _can't_. I don't want you to."

"I promise you, I won't."

So Jack kisses him hungrily again with a sob of relief, and Pitch is glad to return the action, because even though Jack told Tooth he was useless, he is apparently doing something right if they are both still here together. They carry on for a while until they are both breathless and lightheaded, lips tingling, pupils dilating, hearts racing. Then he decides that they ought to clear things up before it carries on.

"When you see them again, will you make up?"

Jack noses his neck with a wet sniffle. "I don't know. I just…Tooth and Sandy. I can't remember, Pitch. Do you know what that's like? To wake up and realize that part of your life is missing?"

Something tells him that he does, but he remains silent and lazily drags his fingers up and down Jack's back. "You were willing to have me come after them when you awoke me."

He flushes. "I was really angry. But I'm not that angry anymore. It's okay. So please don't. And…even if you had come out of that hole with power that I could work with, I'd have chickened out later, I think. I love them. They're my friends."

"Good. Because skinning a rabbit is terribly messy, and I haven't the slightest idea how to stuff a bird."

"That's sick," Jack says, but he is laughing against his warm skin. "You really would have done that only for me?"

"Of course," Pitch replies calmly. He has come to terms with this long ago. "I love you. I will do anything you want, but I will always try to do what's best for you." He feels Jack tense, but he does not care. "You don't have to accept my love, you understand. What we have now is fine. I will simply interpret it differently. You don't have to…are you crying again?"

Indeed, he is, and he sits up and draws his knees up to his chest with a slight hiccup as he mumbles, "Shit, Pitch. That's not…I mean, you're…"

"Like I said," the king says soothingly, sitting up and rubbing soothing circles into his back, "I expect nothing from you."

Jack is already shaking his head. "No, no, you don't—I mean, you should! I just woke you up out of nowhere so that I could use you, and then I thought you were just going to be useless, and I don't know where we'd be right now, but something just kept making me come back."

"You wanted to see if I could get my power back so that I could help you," Pitch suggests lightly.

"No! Well, maybe, at first, but even that only lasted in my head for a week. I just kept seeing you and not knowing why I _wanted_ to see you, so I just kept coming back, and I don't know at which point I fell in love with you, but it must have been…" He pauses abruptly. "God, this is cheesy."

"Yes, it is." But Pitch is not complaining. He'll take anything he can get at this point. It's worth it anyway, because his heart feels like it will burst because Jack _said it_. Almost. "Does this mean that you actually are?"

"In love with you? Yeah." The answer is faint and astounded, but a smile grows on Jack's face like the break of dawn. "Yes, I fucking love you. _God!_ You know what? I think I liked you a lot after a week or so of hanging out with you, even when you broke all those toys, and then I really started loving you on Halloween, because you were just…there. For me. You did stuff for me. Even now, I know that you went out to get the truth so that you could help me. It was all for me, wasn't it?"

"It was," Pitch agrees. "And we still need to talk."

"Oh. Yeah. Um, okay."

Pitch smiles and cradles Jack's face between his hands. "If you would like to put it off for a few hours, I am perfectly willing." The flash of lust darkening those blue orbs sends heat spiraling through his body, but he advises, "Perhaps we should go home though. North said he was coming up with hot chocolate, and I wouldn't want him to catch—"

He is silenced by a giddy kiss. "No, I think we can stay right here. There are other ways I can get revenge. Mental scarring is a good one."

"I thought the old man had nothing to do with it."

"Eh, yeah, but I'm sure I'll get angry at him later or something."

Pitch lowers their bodies down to stretch out on the mattress and places a kiss on the underside of Jack's jaw, but notices that the spirit is trembling. He pulls back and looks into his eyes: Jack is more than willing, and quite genuine, but he is still broken. He is putting up some sort of front, or at least using their newfound joy and love as a way to ignore the main issue. Pitch sighs and kisses him again, softly, gently, and pulls the covers over them snugly.

"What're you doing?" Jack sounds like his energy is vanishing rapidly, like he knows exactly _why_ this is happening.

"I think this can wait for a little while." Jack does not resist when he is drawn into loving arms. "I'm tired anyway. I've had a busy couple of days tracking down your story."

"But makeup sex is nice," the Guardian mumbles.

"We've technically only had one fight."

"Hn. When we wake up?"

"When we wake, we will _talk_. And then…that."

It is disturbingly picturesque, he thinks, the pair of them lying in bed, seeking comfort in each other's embrace, but he is beyond caring right now. Jack is drifting off to sleep in his arms already, and he is quite certain that he feels the tug of weariness too. He relents, rather proud of himself that their first reconciliation has gone quite well.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Should be studying, but I got super stressed and started typing, then _this_ came out, and I have a final in a couple hours and these two are adorable, and did I mention that _it's finals week?!_

Hope you enjoyed. (Help me! Gah!)


	14. Day

So…here he is again. At a party of sorts. More of a get-together. Although it is rather different this time. It is not like the block party which was organized by the Bennetts, nor is it like the large gala concocted by the Russian. No, this is something which Pitch finds himself enjoying a little bit more.

New Year's Eve.

The pinnacle of everything. The summation of one's life over the past three-hundred and sixty-five days. Pitch has not been awake for an entire year, but he has had a rather interesting few months. In any case, he is standing here on the edge of the pier, looking out at the small lake which downtown Burgess overshadows. He has never paid much attention to this place when he has had bigger fish to fry in grander American cities like Chicago and New York and San Francisco. In their dark underbellies lie the shadows he loves.

However. Here. Here is someplace that he can definitely grow used to. And that is due to the young man who is currently trotting towards him with two steaming cups of hot chocolate in his hands, a long staff tucked under his arms. He hands one cup to Pitch, who takes it with a smirk, scrutinizing that pale face which he had seen in a much different state a few hours earlier.

Yes, had that not been the very face which had contorted with agonizing pleasure under his ministrations? He seems to remember those lips pink and swollen from eager kisses and playful nips, those blue eyes glazed over after his soul had been suspended in the clouds. Pitch shivers, because he remembers _many_ things about that face and body too, and apparently Jack knows what he is thinking because he reddens with a sudden splutter after one look at those hungry, golden eyes and turns away to stare hard at the black waters.

"You perv." He tugs embarrassedly at the black scarf wrapped about Pitch's neck, the scarf he worked hard to make with as few mistakes as possible.

"Not what you said earlier," Pitch hums guiltlessly, splaying a hand on the small of his back and leading him to an empty bench near the water. They are seen by some people, unseen by others, but that is not what matters right now. They are here because they were asked to be here. The famous Twining Gardens of downtown Burgess are right behind them, the place where they all agreed to meet near—the Guardians, the Bennetts and their neighborhood friends, himself, and Jack. Jack, who knows he has to brave his fears and talk to his colleagues.

Pitch had not exactly had the chance to talk things over when they awoke again. They had leapt right into making up, and there had been a very close call when North had come tromping up the stairs to check on them for what was apparently the second time, but they had evaded that easily by slipping into darkness, back to that forgotten bed in the lowly lair. Afterwards, Jack mentioned the New Year tradition he usually shared with the children of old, and Pitch had agreed to come along.

And they still haven't talked.

"Jack."

The youth sighs into his drink. "Yeah, yeah, I know. That thing."

"It's better to get this over with before you see all of them."

"It's not all of them that I have a problem with. Only two. No big deal." But he has gone paler under the lights which are still strung up from the Christmas holiday. "I…what should I say? How do I say sorry to—"

"First of all," Pitch cuts in with a gentle sharpness, "you will not be apologizing. You are not at fault here." He threads his fingers through those soft locks and turns his face so he can lock eyes with him. "And second: I am sure they are wondering the exact same thing. Enough of this foolishness. You only need to sit and listen to them. You don't have to say _anything_. And if you cannot handle it, I will take you home and you can try it again another day."

"What makes you think I'd be willing to try again?"

"You said it yourself. You love them. Clearly you miss them, even if you're still angry for what happened."

Jack presses against him and leans his head against his shoulder. "I wish it had never happened." He looks up. "Do you? I mean, if it hadn't, we wouldn't be here right now."

Pitch tastes his drink and finds it somewhat agreeable. Not nearly as sweet as the way North makes it at least. "I could not say. I wish that this had never happened to you, but I cannot bring myself to wish that we had not met again like that. Perhaps if there had been a chance to meet and wind up here in a different way, then I could say it with a free heart. But at the moment, I can't give a concrete answer."

"Useless," Jack chides warmly, lacing his fingers with the hand over his shoulder. Pitch looks down and remembers the first day those pale appendages had been blackened by the cursed soil of his home. The day Jack had given him life again.

"You…what did I look like when you pulled me out of the ground?"

"Like shit."

Pitch tugs at his white hair. "Language, brat."

"Who're you to—whatever. What's it matter anyway? I went there because…well, you know why I went there." He is still uncomfortable about the subject. Pitch supposes that is only because he feels guilty for ever having thought that he might teach his friends a lesson by resurrecting the _Boogeyman_. "There's not much to say. You were just really weak and tired and you didn't look like you did before. You were thinner…your eyes were sunken and they weren't as bright. Really dull and empty."

"So you just stuck you hand in the dirt and dragged me out?"

Jack looks up at the sky. The stars are just barely there because of the city's lights, but they are visible, so it's enough. "No, I…the entrance was gone. I remembered where it was, but there was only dirt. I had to dig a lot. Shoulda gotten a shovel."

Pitch remembers the dirt on these lovely white hands, the particles beneath the nails, and wonders why something so pure would bother with a corrupted creature such as himself, even for revenge.

"When I got through and made it into the main cavern, I could hardly see anything. I looked around a lot, but I didn't have much to worry about. Sandy had made a visit through another entrance years earlier to take back his sand and hadn't had any trouble. Knowing that, I didn't pay attention to the darkness. I should have."

A chill crawls down Pitch's spine, and it's not because of Jack's skin. "The shadows. Did they—"

"Find me? Yeah. I knew you had power before the sand. I mean, it wasn't like my team-up with the Guardians led to my first meeting with you. You chased me away a couple times with these weird…things."

A word passes through Pitch's mind but he does not say it because then he would have to explain what those "things" were, and the thought of them chasing Jack is infuriating enough. "So you saw something in the shadows?"

"No, the point is that I _didn't_. I let my guard down. Found you in that room way in the back, actually. Our bedroom." He pauses and blushes again. "I can say that, can't I? 'Our'?"

"Please," Pitch agrees, nuzzling his hair. "I have no qualms with it."

"Yeah? Okay. I found you there though. You wouldn't wake up. So I just reached out and touched you. Um, everything went crazy. Like, the ground started shaking and the shadows started shifting even though it was super dark down there, and the walls started screeching—the _walls_, Pitch! That's so weird! And I got really freaked out, so I grabbed you and flew outta there. Whatever was down there tried to chase us. You know, for a guy who was super thin, your ass sure was heavy—ow, hey!"

"Watch yourself."

"Truth hurts, don't it?" He gives this grin which is blinding and lovely. "Where was I? I flew us out, and the thing tried to pull you back down when I got outside. That's when you started waking up. I kept tugging until you were out and the shadows were in and you opened your eyes and everything down there just went still and silent. Like the shadows knew that the master was finally up and ready to deal with them. Or something like that."

The Nightmare King is rather impressed, and expresses his approval through a kiss. "My hero."

"Damn straight." He is going to boast more, but his attention is caught by someone else. "Jamie!"

Pitch lets him run off and sits staring out at the pier with all of the festive lights. Somewhere far beyond, his sharp eyes pick out a small team prepping an impressive stash of fireworks for the night's scheduled event. Midnight is a long ways off though, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees a certain group of spirits approaching through the crowd, some of whom stop to give them strange or disbelieving looks. Pitch goes to greet them.

"You have thought long and hard about your transgressions?"

"They don't need _you_ to tell 'em what they did wrong," Bunnymund grumbles. Pitch may have agreed to visit again, but they are still enemies first and foremost.

"He's worried," Pitch counters. "I'd hate it if either of you said the wrong thing _again_ and set him off." When he notices the nervous expressions on Tooth and Sandy's faces, he back off a little. "But I trust that you will make amends well enough."

Jack has returned to his seat on the bench, swinging his legs as he waits for Pitch's return. The shade points at Tooth. "Now is your chance."

She flutters forward, then hesitates. "What if he runs off?"

Pitch wants to be the one by his side, so he glares at her in a way that says she just needs to go _now_ and get it over with, yet not rush it too much that it sounds insincere. She steels herself and makes her way to the bench. One delicate hand stretches out to brush Jack's shoulder; the boy turns with an expectant smile, then freezes for a second before ducking his head. Pitch turns away at that moment. The moment belongs to those two now, and he should not interfere.

To pass the time, he leads the Guardians to Jamie and the group of children of old, along with their families. The reunion between spirits and mortals is a joyful riot, though Pitch hangs on the fringes of it with his cup of cocoa and a hint of a smile hidden beneath the pearl stitch of a warm, handmade scarf.

Perhaps ten minutes later, Toothiana appears at his side. Her face is flushed and her eyes glisten with unshed tears, but she is smiling, and that is all the shade needs to see. "I take it that your talk went well?"

She sniffles and wipes delicately at her eyes. "Yes…yes, I think it did. Thank you."

Golden orbs slide lazily towards the happy group tossing snowballs at their children. "I've done nothing. Perhaps you should tell Sanderson that his number is up." He purposely does not look at her as she brushes a grateful hand against his arm. She laughs at his stiff personality and catches Sandy's eye, motioning to Jack. The Guardian of Dreams goes immediately, and once again, Pitch keeps his eyes off of the pair in a surprisingly respectful manner. He can no longer interfere with them.

Jamie comes over to him a little while later and slings an arm comfortably around his shoulder, ignoring the frigid sneer and glare he receives in return. "You've changed."

"I will strike you."

"You're still coming around for dinner on Fridays, right?"

"Why on earth—"

"Because, I mean, Jack seems very happy with you around. And Sophie's been keeping me updated on what's been going on between him and the others and you. Apparently Bunny's her informant."

Pitch scowls at the blond-headed young woman who is being twirled about in the snowy grass by her husband. He'd all but forgotten of her. Well, then. "It's none of your business."

"Who said anything about business? I just wanted to know if you'd be there this Friday. So that Pippa knows how much to make."

"If I have not missed a dinner yet, what makes you think I'd miss one now?" the shade snaps, because maybe he does not mind eating with the Bennetts as much as he lets on.

Jamie looks at him with wide eyes, then chuckles. "Right, you're right." His kids are calling him, begging that he help them work on a snowman, and he waves. "For the record, Pitch, it's been great having you around here. I hope you'll be around for a long time." He then rushes at his children with a playful roar and sweeps them up in a wide circle, his laughter mingling with their thrilled squeals.

Pitch hangs off to the side, his half-empty cup still warming his already-hot hands. What is this? This clichéd heat spreading through his chest? This common feeling described in the ridiculous books scribed by mortals, this sensation which is found by the hearth in the chilly winter? He thinks he hates it. He murmurs into his scarf that he loathes it. But he looks at the Guardians and the humans, and although he wants to remain an outcast, wants to be on the outer circle, wants to make sure that they understand that he has no intention of becoming their friend…

"I hope I'll be around for a long time too."

A soft glow alerts him to Sandy's approach. He is not sure what to make of the expression on the little man's face. It is a mix of sorrow and jubilation, a very complex thing which has him stepping in his path to stop his approach towards the group. "Well?"

Sandy looks up, surprised, then glances back at where he has left the winter sprite. Pitch allows himself a peek too. Jack is leaning forward, hood up, back hunched, clutching his staff to his body in his usual contemplative way. The Sandman huffs, not in exasperation, but in relief. The shifting symbols fly up.

_There is hope for me yet._

"Then he has forgiven you?"

_No. Nor has he forgiven Tooth. And he does not trust either of us completely. Yet. But he wants to. He told me he wants to, and that he understands why we did it. He said you helped him figure it out._

"I did absolutely nothing," Pitch disagrees, trying to think of what he could have possibly said to make Jack think that he—

_He mentioned something about your rather violent threat against us._ Sandy fixes him with a knowing look. _I don't doubt that you meant it._

Pitch nods without shame. He had meant it with all of his heart. "What of it?"

_You spoke of love. How you would do anything for him. Back then, when Tooth and I tried to tell him why we did what we did, or at least why we tried to do it, we told him it was because we loved him and couldn't bear to see him hurt._

"That explains _that_," Pitch snarls to himself, remembering exactly how Jack had rejected his confession.

_However,_ Sandy continues (though he looks like he knows about that too even though there could be no possible way), _because of what you were willing to do, he understands. He didn't like it, but he understands. Our loves are of the same material, though yours is a little stronger and somewhat different. But he gets it. So thank you for that._

"I wish you'd all stop thanking me. I've done nothing."

_You call loving him nothing?_

Pitch looks again to the blue hoodie and sips his drink. "No. Never nothing." He sighs. "Very well. Does that mean this business is all behind us?"

_It will take time. But as I said, he wants to trust us again. We will start slowly and keep our expectations low, but if you continue to support him, it will be alright._

"And what if I want to be selfish? What if I want to make sure that this rift never heals so that I can have him for myself?"

_You won't,_ Sandy chuckles silently. _You love him too much._

"Wouldn't love be the reason for selfishness?"

_No. I mean that you love him too much to do the wrong thing for him. You know that we are right for him. And because you want what's right for him, you want to heal this friendship. And you _will_. Face the facts, Pitch Black. Until all is set right, you're stuck with us._

The mischievous words and conniving look in the Sandman's eyes shocks Pitch. He has seen the Guardian look crafty when they fought and he had the upper hand, but never with such a sharp gleam like now. The plotting behind it is astounding. A wicked grin twists Pitch's face, and he cackles softly. "God, Sanderson. We could have been powerful. If only you had a bit more taint, we could have ruled ages ago."

_You know that's not what I want for the children._

"You could have done whatever you wanted for the children without _them_. It would have been just the two of us."

He snorts, but his golden smile is utterly amused by the idea. _Don't start propositioning me. He might get jealous._

Pitch looks at the unmoving frost spirit. "Right." It's high time that he goes to the boy. He downs the rest of the hot chocolate, hands the trash to his rival counterpart who huffs with resigned annoyance, and makes his way by a group of civilians, some of whom smile knowingly and nervously at him, some of whom do not see him at all. He smirks back at the ones who look at him, sending them into a flurry of whispers. It's good to have believers. They radiate a mixture of fear and curiosity, a very delicious scent which Pitch takes a moment to savor before sitting by Jack.

The boy shifts and mumbles, "Hey."

Pitch touches his hands. "You look rather glum for someone who's on his way to having his friends back." Jack shrugs. Pitch frowns, leans down, and sees that his cheeks are still wet. "Is something wrong?"

"Um…not really." But he suddenly leans closer so Pitch has to wrap an arm around him. "I mean, nothing's wrong at all. I'm not ready to hang out with them right away, but I'll visit sometimes and it'll get better."

"Then why do you weep?"

"Why do you talk like an old British geezer?" comes the counter. Pitch chuckles and presses his lips to the blue hood. "Sorry. Nothing's wrong. But…I still don't remember them, Pitch. I don't like that. There's no way to get those kids back, and it just doesn't sit well with me. There's a hole in my head. I hate it."

Pitch thinks quietly to himself as they watch the humans mill about. His thoughts almost go into a daze with all of the pretty lights and the buzz of voices. After a bit, Jack pushes back his hood, lifts his head, and steals a kiss. Pitch blinks and finds himself staring at those brilliant blue eyes, which look just a little bit happier.

"Well?"

Jack kisses him again. "Well, what? I'll try not to think about it for tonight, because I have you, and that's enough. In the meantime, there's a couple hours before midnight. Let's go have some fun."

Of course the Guardian of Fun would be the one to convince him to run about the city with the rest of the pack. Once upon a time, Pitch would not be caught anywhere near civilization during festive holidays, save Halloween. But, as Pitch has told himself time and time again since his awakening, that time is past. This is a new age, and he does not mind it at all.

Though he does hesitate when they visit the small carnival along the pier, and the brats of the people who were once his enemies try to drag him into fun houses and onto large rides. He might enjoy his time with Jack, and he may push himself to be more sociable to a certain extent, but this is stretching it. A lot. Still, Jack is smiling as he watches him step into a carriage of the Ferris wheel, so he goes along with it. And tries to hide his own smile. God, this is getting all quite ridiculous.

"Uncle Black!" Joey giggles with excitement while his sister and the other children are pressed up against the window as they rise through the air. "Look! Loooook!"

Pitch rolls his eyes as the boy crawls into his lap and looks down at what Joey is pointing at. One of his canines is missing.

"You thee?" Joey cries. "I lotht it this morning! Momma thaid Tooth would come to get it tonight! After we get back."

A fatherly instinct kicks Pitch in the heart, and he nearly loses his breath from it. Without thinking, he bounces Joey on his knee and damn near croons with a much smaller idiotic smile than Jamie would have done, "Good for you. But you'll probably fall asleep before the night's out."

"Nu-uh! This ithee only night we get to be awake really late. I'll thtay up!"

Pitch can't decide if his lisp waning or waxing because of the lost tooth, but he'll have to tell Jamie to find a way correct it for the boy, because that kind of speech pattern can lead to vulnerability at school, and the last thing he wants is for Joey to be bullied. Again, that feeling of protectiveness worms its way in, but before it can latch on, he sets Joey down so the kid can go look down at the city beneath him. As he leans back and vaguely listens to the children rave at the sights, he thinks again of Jack's memory situation. The golden glow of the lights outside reminds him of the dream sand which deprived Jack of happiness. Then he hears Joey bragging to the others about his tooth while Molly tells him to hush, and a solution suddenly rattles about in his skull, shining with brilliance.

He nearly jumps through his shadows as soon as he realizes it, but recalls that he's supposed to be watching these brats, and he does not want to hear Pippa's nagging if he abandons them, so he sits and practically vibrates with excitement. When they reach the top, the children tug at him until he comes to the window.

Down below, he sees the beautiful lights, the stretching buildings, the pier, the dark water, and the glow of the cities on the other side of the lake, because it is no Lake Michigan, that's for sure. Still, it looks nice, and he can actually spot the Guardians and others waiting in line to go up. Jack, though he fidgets with his staff, is actually chatting shyly with Tooth, who looks like she's going to faint with elation. Sandy is somewhere else in line, so _that's_ going to take more time, but every once in a while, the young spirit glances back to smile nervously at him. Pitch's heart glows with pride. Just as he is making efforts, so is Jack.

Ah, but there is his idea to remember. When he and the brood reach the ground, he shoos them back to their parents with a miniscule smile. When some of them linger, he threatens them, but ruffles their hair like a good Nightmare Uncle should and makes the shadows pinch playfully at their heels as they dash with delighted screams towards their parents. Then he straightens up and barks, "Sanderson!"

The Guardian gives him a look, but floats over. Pitch gestures to Tooth as well, and they take to the edge of the pier where he tells them of his idea. When he finishes, he struggles not to grin as the pair looks out upon the waters with wonder and excitement. "Well?"

"Well? _Well?_ Pitch, it's genius!" Tooth hugs him before he can protest, but he wonders if he would have protested at all. Well, yes, he would have, but the embrace is over before he can make a big deal of it, so he does not say a word, even as Sandy claps a hand on his shoulder in congratulations.

_I think that this truly is a night for celebration._

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Pitch warns him. "First, you need to tell me if this is within your abilities."

_Absolutely,_ Sanderson says immediately.

"Of course it is," Tooth agrees. "But should we tell him now, or surprise him by…"

Pitch shakes his head. "No. What happens if he wakes up and sees you hovering again? He'll do worse than cry. More than likely, he'll lash out if he doesn't know what's happening, and that is very unsafe for both of you. I'll tell him later tonight, and if he's willing to go along with it, then all should be set right."

They don't say a word of it afterwards, though every time he passes by them as they wander up and down the pier, he can sense their excitement. It is only about fifteen minutes or so before midnight when they all meet up before the Twining Gardens again.

Jack has cleared away the snow in the grass to give them a comfortable sitting ground. The others have brought blankets, and at Jack's urging, Pitch delves his shadowy powers into the ground to give it some warmth so they aren't uncomfortable. He sits a little ways off, not close enough that they would feel encouraged to include him in their laughter and talk, but not far enough that he cannot listen in and have the sensation of being a part of the group. Molly brings him a folded blanket and passes it off to him, taking the advantage to kiss his cheek with a giggle before running back to the other little girls, who are breathless with laughter.

"Looks like I might have competition when she gets older."

Pitch rolls his eyes as he spreads the cloth out on the cleared grass. "That will never happen."

Arms slip around his waist. "Thank God for that."

They sit down, and Pitch cannot wait any longer. "I've been thinking."

"Oh boy."

He cuffs him upside his snowy head. "Stuff it. This is about you."

"You've been making a lot of things about me," Jack murmurs seductively, pressing his lips to Pitch's neck. Not that the shade doesn't mind it, but he really does want to give the good news.

"There might be a way…"

"Hm?"

"To help you remember the children."

The lips on his skin cease all movement and seem to grow colder than ever. He feels a tremor rip through Jack's lithe body.

"…Do you mean that?"

"Of course."

"How?" he whispers hoarsely, fumbling for Pitch's hands.

Pitch laces their fingers together reassuringly. "I remembered something that Sanderson showed me. He showed me what happened that night in your head, when the memories were destroyed. That means I could see the faces of the children too."

"I don't—"

"Hush and let me speak. He and I have the power to show one another our memories, and to show others if we want. He showed me what he remembered, and he remembers in great detail. All of the children's faces were there. This is what he will do: he will show the faces of the children you've forgotten to Toothiana, and she will have her fairies hunt down their memory boxes."

Jack pulls back frantically. "But she'll have to describe thousands of faces to them! Either that, or she'll have to find every single box alone!"

"She communicates with those little puffballs telepathically. How hard is it to send them images of these forgotten children?" Jack holds his breath, so Pitch continues gently. "When she finds them, she and Sanderson will sift through every box to find the memories each child holds involving _you_. That is all you need, really. And once those are found, they will have a collection to give to you of all of the children you forgot, from the moment they began to believe in you to the very last second they were able to see you. Or even beyond that, if they haven't stopped believing in you yet."

Jack lets him go in a state of shock and sits there, stumped. Pitch can't help but laugh. "Simplest solution in the world, isn't it? It will take a long time, but they are willing to do it all for you. The only problem is that Sanderson will have to transfer the memories to you through his dream sand, and the memories will have to be given to you gradually, which means he'll have to get inside your head again, preferably when you're asleep. I'm not sure how you'll want to do that, but I'm sure there's a way around it if—"

"No. No." Jack is crying again, and Pitch pulls his hood over his head so that the others don't see with their meddlesome eyes. "I think that's a good way to—to get back in touch with them. A sign of…"

"Trust," Pitch breathes, gently pushing Jack's staff out of the way and taking his face into his hands. "All is well then?"

"All will be," Jack says, then smashes their mouths together with a fervor not unlike this morning. His tears are cold and wet on Pitch's skin, but they are a sign that this will work. All of this will work, and they will be fine, and life will continue in this way that Pitch is slowly growing used to.

"Hold on," he grunts, mouthing at Jack's splendid neck. "There are children present."

"Then why don't you stop?" Jack gasps, the noise sending a spike of heat shooting straight down south for both of them. "Never knew you cared about the sensibilities of kids."

"If I do now," Pitch growls, nipping at his collarbone, "it's thanks to you."

Jack stops his hands from sliding under his hoodie and pulls his face up so that they can stare one another in the eye. "Pitch?"

"Yes?"

Those blue eyes, so bright and trusting, soften. Jack looks like a dream in the soft lights, his pale face partially shaded by his hood. Pitch wonders at his luck, especially when Jack smiles his perfect smile and whispers, "I love you." He guides their lips together, hot and cold, and they create a warmth of body and heart, not sensual, but simple and pure, more emotional than lustful.

"What did I do to deserve you?" Pitch murmurs.

Jack laughs as a strange shouting picks up from the depths of the city, being taken up by others along the pier. "I could ask the same."

"No, you couldn't."

"Yes. I really could. But I guess we'll just keep asking those questions for the rest of our lives, because we'll never know."

It is the countdown, Pitch realizes. He stops Jack from stealing another kiss and listens to their companions as they give voice to the numbers. Jack listens for a moment, then grins as they enter the final ten. "Nine, eight, seven, six—"

Pitch's heart swells again, as it will until the end of time, if he's lucky enough to stay by Jack's side for that long. "Five, four, three, two—"

Jack doesn't even wait for the final count. He tosses back his hood, throws himself at Pitch, and kisses him as hungrily as ever, as though he has been deprived of the shade's mouth for days on end. The echoing cry of "_Happy New Year_" nearly deafens him, but he is too preoccupied to care. After a few seconds of the cheers, all he can hear is his heartbeat—and Jack's.

This is love, he thinks, sitting there as Jack suddenly springs up to give his friends the same words. This is love and warmth and family, even if he is reluctant to join in with these humans. He has not had this feeling since…well, he can't remember. He is probably forgetting something. But his memories were probably worthless before Jack came along, so he does not care.

Something cold smacks him upside the head and he sits up, spluttering. Jack is doubled over with laughter while the children, surprisingly still filled with energy this late at night, squeal and taunt "Uncle Black" to join them in a chase through the snow. He only has to look at that winter spirit for a second before energy floods his limbs and he's on his feet, much to the surprise of the adults.

"You brat," is all he growls, which can somehow be translated to "I love you too", and then he scoops up some snow and lobs it (quite accurately) at Jack. It flies true and strikes hard, and the first snowball fight of the New Year is upon them. He hears Jamie's encouraging laughter and thinks that this isn't too terrible. This family business. Another snowball narrowly misses his shoulder, and he returns fire again.

Well. It is officially the first day of the New Year, and he can afford to enjoy himself for the moment.

* * *

**Author's Note:** You know, technically this fic was supposed to be over at the Halloween chapter, but the storyline changed, and it led to all of this. What can ya do? But it was very fun, either way.

Give me a week or so to get started on the STHS sequel. Updates will not be every day like they were last time. I don't think I'll ever have the strength to do that again. But once a week should be enough. That's the normal thing to do anyway. Hope you enjoyed this! And _thank_ you for wishing me well on finals. I'd say they went well. See you soon!


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